In Britney Spears’ new memoir “The Woman in Me,” the Grammy award-winning singer opened up about how she felt her ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake’s video for his hit track “Cry Me a River” made her appear as a “harlot” to the Americans, per reports.
In an excerpt from the book — which is set to hit shelves on Tuesday (Oct. 24) — the musician details how the song impacted her life following their breakup, as the public has long speculated that the 2002 track was inspired by or was referencing Spears.
Spears said the video featured “a woman who looks like me, cheats on him and he wanders around sad in the rain,” and that after it was released she was subjected to public scrutiny and was painted as a “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy.” She added that at the time, she was actually “comatose in Louisiana healing from heartbreak while the Memphis-born singer-songwriter was “happily running around Hollywood.”
Spears and Timberlake’s romance was one of the shining matchups in Hollywood during the early 2000’s. The former couple dated from 1999 to 2002. The song was part of Timberlake’s debut album “Justified,” and the video was released shortly after their split.
Spears has shared other apparent revelations from their time together. Spears made headlines after she detailed that she became pregnant with Timberlake’s child while they dated and that she had an abortion because Timberlake thought they were too young to be parents.
“I don’t know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it,” Spears wrote in her book, referring to the incident as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced” in her life. “And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”
“The Woman in Me” will also detail Spears’ decades-long music career, her turbulent coming of age in the entertainment industry, her personal relationships and her 13-year conservatorship, which ended in November 2021.
“It is finally time for me to raise my voice and speak out, and my fans deserve to hear it directly from me,” she wrote in another exceprt. “No more conspiracy, no more lies — just me owning my past, present and future.”