WHAT GOES AROUND...

Justin Timberlake Finally Addresses Britney Spears Rumor

The pop star cleared up decades-long speculation about his ex-girlfriend.

Justin Timberlake has decided to “dispel” a long-standing rumor about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Britney Spears.

The 45-year-old, who has won 10 Grammy Awards, appeared on Complex’s “Re-Rank” series, where he ranked his own work. When it came to his 2006 hit, “What Goes Around… Comes Around,” Timberlake finally revealed it was not written about Spears.

For years, audiences speculated that Timberlake was singing about Spears, whom he dated from 1999 to 2002.

“I think, maybe I should dispel a rumor at this point, which has gone around forever, which is like—it’s not a personal story from mine, it’s actually a personal story from a friend that I asked permission to [use],” Timberlake said.

“He was just going through it, and he was telling me what happened, and I said, ‘Do you mind if I write about this?’ And I quote, my friend said, ‘Yeah, torch that b---h, what goes around comes around,’” he continued.

“And I was like, ‘I have to go, thank you.’ He was like, ‘What?’ I was like, ‘I got it.’ And I hung up the phone, and so I had the idea,” he explained, not naming Spears explicitly throughout the anecdote.

Timberlake, known as the “Prince of Pop,” said he wrote the song in “damn near 20 minutes.”

“It was just flowing,” he said, adding that he believes the song was in the top two of his career.

“What Goes Around... Comes Around” was wildly successful, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and winning Timberlake the Best Male Pop Vocal Performance Award at the Grammys.

His 2006 pop anthem may not be about Spears, but Timberlake’s 2002 hit “Cry Me a River” is widely seen as being inspired by Spears, with a Spears lookalike starring in the accompanying video. In it, she is portrayed as having cheated on him.

Timberlake and Spears, now 44, have drawn heavy speculation. In 2023, Spears discussed Timberlake extensively in her memoir, The Woman in Me, which she released after regaining control of her life.

Spears said that she was “devastated” after the breakup and that Timberlake appeared unfazed.

“I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood,” she wrote. “When I say devastated, I mean I could barely speak for months. Whenever anyone asked me about him, all I could do was cry. I don’t know if I was clinically in shock, but it felt that way. Everyone who knew me thought something was wrong with me, really wrong.”

She said she was portrayed as “a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy,” revealing that while she cheated on Timberlake with choreographer Wade Robson, Timberlake was also unfaithful. She also revealed that Timberlake pushed her to have an abortion.

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The pop star later apologized for shedding light on the relationship. “I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book,” Spears wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post.

“If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry,” she continued, adding that she is “in love” with Timberlake’s 2024 song “Selfish.” Timberlake did not seem to take the apology well, and he shaded his ex-girlfriend onstage shortly after.

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Meera NavlakhaEntertainment Reporter

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