Britney Spears used part of her The Woman in Me memoir to react to Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera’s overwhelmingly “positive” press in the 2000s.
A source confirms to Us Weekly that Spears, 41, even writes about Timberlake and Aguilera’s joint cover of Rolling Stone. Spears recalls seeing the images — where Timberlake looked at Aguilera, both now 42, with “sexy eyes” — and reading the cover story.
Timberlake and Aguilera — who costarred with Spears on the All New Mickey Mouse Club — teamed up for the June 2003 issue of Rolling Stone ahead of their joint tour. Aguilera referred to Spears, who split from Timberlake the year prior after reports of infidelity, as his “ideal mate.”
“He and Britney made a great couple. I’ve known the both of them since [Mickey Mouse Club], and they kind of had their little crushes even back then,” Aguilera told the outlet. “Britney has known him for such a long time, too —before he was Justin Timberlake, the star, when he was just Justin, the kid on the Mickey Mouse Club. I don’t know, I have a feeling that there’s going to be some reconciliation. I know that they talk and everything, and it’s cool. I don’t think it’s over.”
While Timberlake did not address Aguilera’s pleas for a reconciliation with Spears, he did respond to rumors that he was dating Aguilera. “We’ve been rumored to have had a romance, which is so far off. We’re two people who are just very platonic,” he quipped at the time. “You know, I can’t say that we’re the best of friends, we don’t hang out all the time, but that’s more or less because of what we do, and the schedule is so crazy.”
Spears reveals in The Woman in Me, according to the insider, that she thought Aguilera’s comments were “confusing.”
The pop stars were often compared in the ‘90s and early 2000s, and feuded in the media.
“Every time I tried to start a conversation with her — well, let’s just say she seemed nervous the whole time,” Aguilera previously told Blender magazine in 2004 of reuniting with Spears during rehearsals for the MTV Video Music Awards. “She seems to me like a lost little girl, someone who [desperately] needs guidance.”
Spears rebuffed the Aguilera’s account during her own interview with Blender that year, “When someone has been rude to you so many times, it’s like, ‘You know what, Christina, I’m really not about the fake anymore,’” she said, noting she “[couldn’t] believe] what Aguilera revealed in her cover story.
Spears and Aguilera have since publicly buried the hatchet, with Aguilera even supporting the #FreeBritney movement.
“I would love to [speak to Britney], I would always be open to that,” Aguilera said during an appearance on The Enrique Santos Show in January 2022 after Spears’ 13-year conservatorship was terminated the previous June. “It’s a subject that I definitely want to be careful of because I never want to speak out of turn about somebody that I have so much respect and admiration for. But, I’m so happy [for her].”
More recently, Aguilera wished Spears well during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! earlier this month. “I’m hoping that everything is all good with her and everything’s beautiful. The future should be celebrated,” she said.
Timberlake also has not publicly responded to Spears’ book bombshells, though a source told Us that he is “trying to distance himself” from the memoir. “Justin and Britney dated so long ago, and he has a whole different life now,” the insider said. “He’s focused on his family, his career, and moving forward, and he would like to leave anything that happened in the past behind them.”
The Woman in Me hits bookstore shelves on Tuesday, October 24.
