Britney Spears appears to be extending an olive branch to Justin Timberlake after releasing her bombshell memoir, The Woman in Me.
“I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book,” Spears, 42, captioned an Instagram post on Sunday, January 28. “If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry.”
Spears’ post included a clip of Timberlake, 42, performing Jimmy Fallon’s “Classroom Instruments” segment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. (Her Instagram has since been set to private.)
“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 ???” she wrote.
Spears was seemingly directing her apology to her ex-boyfriend Timberlake, whom she dated from 1999 to 2002. She revealed in her memoir that she had an abortion during their relationship.
“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated,” Spears wrote in the book, which was released in October 2023. “But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.”
Spears wrote that people “will hate” her for the abortion revelation.
“I don’t know if that was the right decision,” she continued in the book. “If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”
Spears’ Instagram post also appeared to serve as a pointed message to her fans. After Timberlake released his first single in five years, titled “Selfish,” on Friday, January 26, Spears’ supporters instead streamed her 2011 song with the same title.
Both “Selfish” songs ended up on the Top 40 of the U.S. iTunes on Friday. Timberlake took the No. 1 spot while Spears’ throwback track trailed his release at No. 4.
Timberlake, for his part, has stayed mum when it comes to the drama surrounding his past relationship with Spears.
“Justin thought Britney might talk about their ups and downs in more general terms — not air out their very personal, dirty laundry,” a source told Us Weekly in October 2023. “He’s disappointed she went this route decades after they split up.”
A second insider revealed that Timberlake has “regrets” about what went down between himself and Spears.
“He was young,” the second insider added. “He thinks Britney has every right to tell her story and hopes they can move on now.”
