In Toni Braxton's memoir, "Unbreak My Heart" (via The Atlantic), the singer revealed that she'd had an abortion in her early 30s, while in a relationship with ex-husband Keri Lewis. As she elaborated during an interview with ET, Braxton was taking the acne medication Accutane at the time of the decision — a drug with the potential to cause serious side effects to fetuses. Eventually, however, she made the final call based on a series of factors.
"I felt selfish because I was thinking, I'm going through bankruptcy — there's things going on with my life and I can't give this kid any future," she explained. "I was feeling hopeless for no reason, when I look at it now for no reason, what was I thinking?" Braxton went on to have two children with Lewis at the start of the early '00s. Their youngest, Diezel Braxton, was diagnosed with autism when he was 3. In her memoir, Braxton courted controversy when she appeared to express her belief that her son's neurodivergence was punishment for having once terminated a pregnancy. Per Daily News, she wrote, "[I] believed that God's payback was to give my son autism."
In an open letter to the star, Autism Daily Newcast shared their disappointment at Braxton's words, and their potential damage. Meanwhile, Braxton agreed with a fan on Twitter who suggested her words had been taken out of context, and she'd never claimed autism was the result of God's wrath.
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