Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake (apparently, reportedly, seemingly) insulting each other is a leading headline on February 1, 2024. You could claim that you saw it coming, but you would be lying. Spears and Timberlake broke up in 2002, but here we are!

First, a video of Timberlake from his one-night-only concert at New York City’s Irving Plaza on Wednesday night, January 31, went viral because it shows Timberlake saying, “I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to absolutely f*cking nobody.” Very shortly thereafter, Spears posted to her now-private Instagram in what really, really feels like a direct retort to Timberlake, even though he didn’t directly mention her name.

“Someone told me someone was talking sh*t about me on the streets!!!” Spears captioned a photo credited as “Perfect Timing” by Hang Hee Kim. “Do you want to bring it to the court or will you go home crying to your mom like you did last time ??? I’m not sorry !!!” (Not for nothing, Barbara Walters visited Timberlake at his family’s home just outside Memphis, Tennessee, for a now-famous interview in November 2002.)

Of course, this hasn’t totally come out of nowhere. Spears injected their long-dead relationship into the mainstream news cycle once more when she released her best-selling memoir, The Woman In Me, last October. Spears alleged that she had been pregnant with Timberlake’s child before getting an abortion and Timberlake cheated on her with another celebrity.

However, Spears reached out a digital olive branch to Timberlake on Monday, January 29. She posted a video from Timberlake’s recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to Instagram alongside the caption, “I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book. If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry. I also wanted to say I am in love with Justin Timberlake’s new song ‘Selfish.’ It is soo good and how come every time I see Justin and Jimmy together I laugh so hard ??? Ps ‘Sanctified‘ is wow too.”

“Selfish” and “Sanctified” are singles from Timberlake’s forthcoming album, Everything I Thought It Was, due out on March 15 via RCA Records. He will begin his supporting tour, The Forget Tomorrow World Tour, on April 29 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. See all dates here.

Posted in: Pop
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