Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, who were formerly married, continue to extend their apologies (or lack thereof).
After a concertgoer verified to PEOPLE that Timberlake, 43, addressed the audience during his concert in New York City on Wednesday that “I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to absolutely f—ing nobody” before playing “Cry Me a River,” Spears, 42, seemed to reply on Instagram. Timberlake’s show was held on Wednesday.
“Someone told me someone was talking s— about me on the streets!!! [sic],” the singer of “Everytime” said in a post that she published on Instagram on Thursday. “Would you want to bring it to the court, or are you going to go home and weep to your mother like you did the previous time??? Please don’t forgive me!!!
He broke up with her through a text message, cheated on her, and publicly embarrassed her with the 2002 song and video for “Cry Me a River,” which is rumored to be about her cheating on him (something she admitted to in the book). Spears reflected on her previous relationship with Timberlake in her memoir The Woman In Me, which was published in 2023. She wrote that she had an abortion with his child, and that he broke up with her.
The announcement that Timberlake is apologizing to “absolutely f—ing nobody” before beginning to perform “Cry Me a River” occurred almost one month after he seemed to reply to what she said about the popular song. Timberlake made the statement on Wednesday.
Before launching into the song at a live performance in December at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, he reminded the audience, “No disrespect,” before beginning the vocal performance.
Additionally, his most recent remark comes only a few days after Spears pondered on tales from her book in a different Instagram post that she published over the weekend. This post has since been removed.
“I would want to express my regret for some of the things that I have written about in my book. In a post that showed Timberlake performing a mashup of his classics with The Roots. The medley was aired on a recent edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about, I am deeply sorry,” the singer said in the post.
For the sake of promoting his next album, Everything I Thought It Was, which is scheduled to be released on March 15, Timberlake gave an interview to Zane Lowe in which he seemed to make a veiled reference to his past.
“I was able, on some of the songs, to look back at the past and have a real, not a refracted perspective of what it was because they always say … you always hear that thing about, well, there’s never any truth, there’s just everybody’s perspective of what happened,” these particular “Selfish” performer said. “But to really look at it and be able to metabolize and verbalize my perspective on it, I don’t think I’ve ever really done that before.”