Chap­ter 15 marks a sig­nif­i­cant peri­od of per­son­al growth and reflec­tion for me, fol­low­ing a painful breakup with Justin. After we split, I was deter­mined to reclaim my con­fi­dence. In Sep­tem­ber 2002, I trav­eled to Milan to vis­it Donatel­la Ver­sace, hop­ing that a change of scenery and a fresh per­spec­tive would help me regain some of the joy I had lost. Donatel­la was an amaz­ing host, and the expe­ri­ence of drink­ing fine wine, eat­ing deli­cious food, and attend­ing her run­way show gave me a much-need­ed sense of excite­ment. She dressed me in a stun­ning spark­ly rain­bow dress, and though I was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to per­form, I was­n’t feel­ing up to it. After a few pos­es, we decid­ed to take it easy, lis­ten­ing to my cov­er of “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll,” while I min­gled with the mod­els. The high­light of the night was the lav­ish par­ty Donatel­la host­ed, where I saw many famous faces, includ­ing Lenny Kravitz. That night marked the first time I felt free after the breakup, enjoy­ing the moment and step­ping out on my own.

As the par­ty went on, I noticed a man who caught my eye. He looked like a typ­i­cal bad boy—dark hair, rugged, and care­free. He had an unde­ni­able charm, and after a few min­utes of con­ver­sa­tion, I decid­ed to invite him to my hotel for drinks. How­ev­er, dur­ing the dri­ve, some­thing about him irri­tat­ed me—though I can’t quite recall the details. On impulse, I told my dri­ver to pull over and kicked him out of the car. Look­ing back, it was an instinc­tive, almost rash deci­sion, but I had no tol­er­ance for bad ener­gy at the time. At 20, I was still fig­ur­ing out bound­aries, and in that moment, I chose to pro­tect myself. I real­ized lat­er that as a moth­er, I would nev­er make such a deci­sion again, but at the time, it felt like the right move to regain con­trol of my sit­u­a­tion.

Around the same time, Justin was prepar­ing for the release of his solo album, Jus­ti­fied, and he seemed to use his music as a way to process our breakup. On 20/20, Justin played an unre­leased song titled “Don’t Go (Hor­ri­ble Woman),” which seemed to be a direct ref­er­ence to me. His new album, par­tic­u­lar­ly the hit song “Cry Me a Riv­er,” fea­tured a music video where a woman who resem­bled me was por­trayed as cheat­ing on him. The media quick­ly picked up on the nar­ra­tive, por­tray­ing me as the vil­lain who broke the heart of Amer­i­ca’s sweet­heart. What the pub­lic didn’t know, how­ev­er, was that I was back home in Louisiana, far from the spot­light, while Justin was liv­ing his life in Hol­ly­wood. It felt like I had become the scape­goat, with Justin’s image being pol­ished and mine being tar­nished. While his album soared, I felt the weight of pub­lic judg­ment, and it was painful to see how eas­i­ly the media accept­ed his ver­sion of events. I was crushed not only by the breakup but by the fact that Justin’s sto­ry became the one every­one believed.

The medi­a’s por­tray­al of me as the unfaith­ful ex-girl­friend added to my sense of shame. It was hard to shake the feel­ing that I was being vil­i­fied, even though the truth was far more com­pli­cat­ed. Justin’s focus on our rela­tion­ship in the press, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the song “Cry Me a Riv­er,” left me with lit­tle room to defend myself. I couldn’t speak out because I knew no one would believe me, and the nar­ra­tive had already been set. Mean­while, the media con­tin­ued to fuel the fire, with peo­ple sid­ing with him and con­demn­ing me. It wasn’t just the pub­lic back­lash that hurt—it was the con­stant reminder of my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and how lit­tle con­trol I had over how I was per­ceived. I felt pow­er­less as my pri­vate life was turned into fod­der for pub­lic con­sump­tion.

This feel­ing of help­less­ness con­tin­ued to grow as my per­son­al life became a sub­ject of con­stant media scruti­ny. The press didn’t just focus on my breakup with Justin—they also scru­ti­nized my sex­u­al­i­ty, attempt­ing to box me into a “vir­gin” image that I had long out­grown. I was tired of the pub­lic obses­sion with my body and my sex­u­al his­to­ry. The media pushed nar­ra­tives that I wasn’t allowed to con­trol, and I resent­ed how my image was manip­u­lat­ed for pub­lic con­sump­tion. At the same time, Justin’s admis­sion of our sex­u­al rela­tion­ship, though uncom­fort­able, helped break the silence about my per­son­al life. Odd­ly enough, I didn’t mind that he shared that aspect of our rela­tion­ship. To me, it felt like an acknowl­edge­ment that I wasn’t just a “good girl” in the eyes of the pub­lic. In some ways, it gave me the free­dom to be seen as an adult and a woman, some­thing I hadn’t ful­ly been allowed to be in the media’s eyes.

As I dealt with the after­math of the breakup, I began to inter­nal­ize the shame and dis­ap­point­ment I felt. My sense of guilt became over­whelm­ing, and I blamed myself for every­thing that went wrong. I was raised to be sen­si­tive and empa­thet­ic, often absorb­ing the emo­tions of oth­ers, even when it wasn’t help­ful for my own men­tal well-being. It wasn’t easy to process the pain, espe­cial­ly with the pub­lic watch­ing my every move. I began to ques­tion my worth, think­ing that per­haps the suf­fer­ing was my fault. But I also believed in kar­ma and felt as though I was pay­ing for mis­takes I had made, whether real or imag­ined. It took time for me to come to terms with the fact that I was­n’t the vil­lain the media made me out to be. In many ways, I was still a young woman learn­ing to nav­i­gate life’s chal­lenges, and I need­ed to for­give myself for the mis­takes I had made along the way.