Will there soon be a public mud fight between Britney Spears (41) and Justin Timberlake (42)? The singer is currently making countless headlines with her newly published autobiography “The Woman in Me”. Among other things, she claims in her book that her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, with whom she was in a relationship for three years in the 2000s, cheated on her and that Spears aborted his child. At the time, the two were considered the dream couple in the international music scene…
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake met long before their musical breakthroughs in the 1990s as members of the infamous “Mickey Mouse Club”, also known as the Disney talent factory. It was also a career springboard for today’s stars like Ryan Gosling (42) and Christina Aguilera (42). Spears and Timberlake didn’t get together as a couple until later, but even back then the two were said to have kissed during a nighttime game of “Truth or Dare,” as the singer has now written in her memoirs.
The two met again in 1998 when Spears was the opening act for Timberlake’s then boy band *NSYNC. The dating rumor mill then bubbled up, although they repeatedly denied it. In 2000, they made their debut as a couple at the MTV Video Music Awards.
This was followed by a number of joint red carpet appearances, regularly in coordinated outfits. In January 2001, Spears and Timberlake appeared in the Super Bowl halftime show along with *NSYNC, Aerosmith, Nelly (48) and Mary J. Blige (52). Speaking to Entertainment Tonight at the time, Spears said of their relationship: “It’s a little difficult, but you know, it’s all about trust. He loves me and I love him and we’re just trying to figure it out.”
At that time, Spears also revealed what nicknames they gave each other during an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s (69) talk show. Timberlake is said to have given her a ring for her little finger, also called the pinky ring. “So he started calling me Pinky and then for some reason I started calling me Stinky, so those are our pet names.”
The two repeatedly made public declarations of love for each other. In an interview with The Guardian in September 2001, she said that she was not at all ashamed to say “that I love him from the bottom of my heart.” Their relationship has grown over the two years, “we’ve been through so much together and we’ve known each other since we were twelve years old, we know each other inside and out.”
That changed in the spring of 2002. Rumors of a love affair had been circulating for a long time; Timberlake was said to have been spotted with “American Pie” star Tara Reid (47) in Los Angeles. But both of them repeatedly publicly denied that they had separated, saying that they only saw each other a little at the time because of their jobs.
But in June 2002 the final separation followed. Timberlake gave the impression that the singer had thrown in the towel. According to rumors, she even cheated on him back then. He said at the time: “It hurts so much. You get to the point where you cry yourself to sleep every night. I feel like I’m in the middle of a soap opera. I honestly know what it’s like, a broken one to have a heart.” He would “always love” Britney.
Spears, however, stated in July 2002 that the separation was amicable. They didn’t talk about the specific reasons that led to the end of their love.
Both never disappeared from the headlines over the years. But there was a lot more fuss surrounding the singer, for example due to her father’s guardianship, her world-famous bald head and the wedding and divorce from Kevin Federline (45), the father of her two sons.
At the beginning of February 2021, the documentary “Framing Britney Spears” was released in the USA, in which the relationship between Timberlake and Spears was also partly discussed. “Britney has no grudge against Justin because of anything he said or did,” an insider reportedly told Us Weekly magazine shortly afterwards. The singer is of the opinion that she and Timberlake were “young and in love” and “both did stupid things” when they were together.
And Timberlake also apologized to Spears in a post shortly after the documentary was released. He explained that he knew that in many moments he had not acted correctly “and that he had benefited from a system that tolerated misogyny and racism.” He is sorry that at times in his life his actions contributed to the problem or that he did not stand up for the right thing. The latest revelations from Britney Spears are all the more surprising…
As the US gossip website “TMZ” reports, the musician accuses Timberlake of cheating on her in her autobiography “The Woman in Me”. For good reason, Spears did not mention the name of her rival from back then. The woman now has a family of her own, which the pop star doesn’t want to hurt with her statements.
The US site “People” had previously published another extremely spicy passage from “The Woman in Me”. Spears states that she became pregnant at the age of 19 – by Justin Timberlake.
For Spears it was a “surprise, but not a tragedy,” People quotes from the book. “I loved Justin so much. I always expected that one day we would start a family together. It was just going to happen a lot sooner than I expected.” But with Timberlake the emotional situation was completely different: “Justin was definitely not happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, we were far too young.”
She finally agreed to have an abortion. At least from her choice of wording in the book – according to “People” – it is clear that she was not the driving force behind this decision: “If it had been left to me alone, I would never have done it. But Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.” That moment over 20 years ago still doesn’t let her go: “To this day, it’s one of the most excruciating things I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Justin Timberlake has yet to comment on the latest headlines. A PR expert recently told The Mirror that it was a “blow” for the singer because Timberlake rarely reveals anything about his private life. The expert further suggested that Spears’ fans “will not allow Justin Timberlake to remain silent.”
