The war between Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake intensifies on the networks and on stages

They only spent three years together more than 20 years ago, when this century had not even begun, but the relationship that Britney Spears (42 years old) and Justin Timberlake (43 years old) had when they were little more than teenagers is still going strong. Their immense exposure to public opinion, at a time when photographers had no shame in pursuing them and television stations in asking them everything about their private lives, gave that relationship a veneer of publicity that few forget. In fact, not even them. Because these days both have returned to throwing stones to shore up that wall that they built 20 years ago and that seemed to be a thing of the past. It is not like this.

The issue was tense since Britney Spears' memoirs were released last October and she revealed details about that relationship, such as the abortion that Timberlake forced her to undergo, something that put him in the spotlight. But you have to rewind more and mix the past with the present to understand what has happened now. On stage during a concert in New York on Wednesday, Timberlake prepared to sing one of the biggest hits of his career, Cry me a river. A song that he wrote right after her breakup with Spears in 2002 (where she speaks not very subtly about a boy whose girlfriend betrays him) and that for both of them is loaded with meaning. When she was going to start singing at New York's Irving Plaza on Wednesday, the night she turned 43, Timberlake said: “I want to use this opportunity to apologize… to absolutely no one, dammit.”

The recipient of the message was obvious: Britney Spears. And she was for several reasons. First, because she herself talked about her ex-partner and that song in her recent memoirs. In The woman that I am, Spears explains that Timberlake dumped her through a series of text messages in early 2002, when they had been dating for three years (they began secretly in 1999 and confirmed their relationship in September 2000, appearing on a red carpet together), and that she got the worst of it, being accused of being a liar and unfaithful. Then he was recording a new album in which he included the song Cry me a river, which ended up becoming one of his greatest hits. So was her video clip, a direct shot at the artist: it stars a blonde girl whose face cannot be seen as she leaves in a car without looking back while he cries and cries. In his 2018 memoirs, the former N'Sync vocalist said that he had felt “despised” and that's why he got angry and wrote it in a couple of hours: “I didn't even plan it. The feelings she had in those moments were so strong that she needed to write them down and put them into something that people could hear and, with a little luck, feel reflected. “People listened to me and understood me, because we have all been there.”

However, Spears' vision on the subject is very different: “A woman who looks like me cheats on him and he walks around sadly in the rain,” she explains about the video clip for that song, which made her look like the bad guy in the movie. who had abandoned him, and for whom the press portrayed her “as a whore who had broken the heart of the golden boy of the United States,” as she herself wrote. “Actually,” she recounted in her book, “I was in a coma in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.” Shortly afterward she had to face a tough television interview by the host, Diane Sawyer, where she was accused in front of millions of people of causing “a lot of pain” to Timberlake. That, as she has said, was a “breaking point” and there she felt “exploited in front of the entire world.”

Following the publication of Spears' memoirs, the singer has remained silent. Britney herself had not spoken about him again either. She hadn't done it before either; She has never used her name as a publicity tool, unlike Timberlake, who has joked over the years about her, her relationship, and her virginity, and has even called her a “whore.” But on Sunday night the singer published a video on her Instagram profile, now deleted, where Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon appeared playing instruments, and in the accompanying text she praised Timberlake's new musical work. and even went further. “I want to apologize for some of the things I wrote in my book. If I offended any people I really care about, I'm deeply sorry. I also wanted to say that I'm in love with Justin Timberlake's new song, Selfish. Is very good. And how can I laugh so much every time I see Justin and Jimmy together? Postscript: Sanctified It's great too.”

That is to say: Timberlake's non-apologies came just three days after Spears' public ones. He had only apologized to her once, in February 2021, when the hearings of the legal guardianship to which Spears was subject by her father were being held. He also apologized to the singer as to Janet Jackson, whose controversial performance at the Super Bowl, when she lifted part of the singer's top and revealed her chest in the air, marks 20 years this February 1. “I have seen the messages, the labels, the comments and I wanted to respond. I am deeply sorry for all the times in my life that with my actions I contributed to the problem, spoke out of turn, or did not stand up for what was right. I know I failed. “I understand that I fell short in those moments and in many others and that I benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism,” he said then. “I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson, individually, because I care about them and respect them and I know that I have failed. “I feel compelled to respond because everyone involved deserves better and because this is a very broad conversation that I want to be a part of.” But he never returned to the conversation.

This time, it was Spears who did not remain silent. In two Instagram posts in which she does not allow comments, she has written very direct hints to her ex. “Be careful how you handle your cards when you have the queen of hearts,” write in the firstwith a drawing of a rose. The second is even clearer: “Someone told me that you are talking shit about me on the street. Are you going to take it to court or are you going to go home crying to your mother like last time? “I don't ask for forgiveness!” The fight has only just begun.