Lately, Justin Timberlake’s career has been in shambles — and for good reason. After Britney Spears’ memoir, The Woman in Me came out on Oct. 24, 2023, the conversation surrounding Justin’s treatment of Britney was reignited after some telling revelations about their relationship. The biggest one was that Britney had an abortion while dating Justin in 2000 because Justin allegedly “didn’t want to be a father.” Not only that, but he also allegedly broke up with Britney over text saying only “It’s over!” while Britney was filming a music video (!!!). So yeah, real charming fellow we’re dealing with here. So, given that this is who we’re dealing with, it should come as no surprise that over the years, he may have ruined the careers of some of the women around him — and benefited from it. So let’s take a closer look:
Justin and Britney Break Up — and Justin can’t keep his mouth shut
In March 2002, Justin broke up with Britney, which he allegedly did by text, texting her “It’s over!” while she was on the set of her music video “Overprotected.” According to Britney, he broke up with her when he was working on his debut solo album Justified, and he began being very standoffish towards her during this time, which she theorizes is because “he’d decided to use me as ammunition for his record, and so it made it awkward for him to be around me staring at him with all that affection and devotion.” On Nov. 25, 2002, Justin released the video for his song “Cry Me a River” on TRL, and the lyrics and storyline heavily suggest that the song is about Britney. The music video featured Justin catching a Britney lookalike cheating on him. She even had a tattoo similar to Britney’s! During this time, Britney suffered from a lot of intense hate from the media and fans because of the video, so much so that she got booed everywhere she went, including a Lakers game where the whole freakin’ arena booed her!
She said she was described as a “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy,” but she actually was “ comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.” He was quite happy indeed, as the song he made dissing Britney peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and his solo album Justified sold over 3 million copies. “Cry Me a River” was the song that got Justin recognition as an individual artist, so it seems as if he really built his career on the back of slandering Britney. The irony in all of this is, of course, that Justin was the cheater in their relationship, according to Britney. Britney wrote in her book that she knew Justin cheated on her “a couple of times” but she was “so infatuated and so in love (she) let it go even though the tabloids seemed determined to rub my face in it”. She said that there were rumors about him with “various dancers and groupies” saying that “I let it all go, but clearly, he’d slept around. It was one of those things where you know but you just don’t say anything.” Britney did cheat too, but she claimed only once, compared to the several supposed liaisons of Justin. She cheated with choreographer Wade Robinson, which she admitted to Justin, and they “moved past it and stayed together.” So the narrative that Britney was the main cheater in their relationship appears to be erroneous.
We also can’t talk about this time without talking about how Justin disrespectfully talked about Britney in the media during this time. For example, during a 2002 radio interview for Star Buc and Wild Morning Show, Justin was asked “Did you f—- Britney Spears?” Justin gleefully laughed before saying “Ok I did it!” In another interview, when Justin was asked if he had “oral intercourse” with Britney, Justin said, “I did it, I’m dirty!” Britney actually wrote that she liked that Justin “outed” her for having sex because it made it so that she never had to come out herself as a “non-virgin.” But still, the way he did it was pretty disrespectful and the fact that he talked about intimate details about their relationship without Britney’s consent is pretty messed up in my opinion.
Not only that, but Justin has continued to talk smack about Britney and play the victim card years after they broke up, while Britney maintained a stiff upper lip on the whole situation. He kept bringing her up in interviews, and in 2006, he even released another song called “What Goes Around Comes Around” supposedly about his split with Britney, still profiting off their breakup three years later. He even talked about Britney in an interview with Vanity Fair Italia over a decade after the breakup, citing that the pain from breaking up with Britney helped make “Cry Me A River.” It’s like dude, you might wanna cool it with the victim act. It’s getting a bit stale at this point, don’t you think?
Janet Jackson and Nipplegate
Unfortunately, Britney was not the only woman whose career it seemed as if Justin ruined and got away with. In 2004, Justin played at the Super Bowl with Janet Jackson. While performing, Justin ripped off part of Janet’s costume, but ripped off the wrong part, revealing her bare breast on national TV. According to Janet Jackson, this move was planned, but Justin Timberlake accidentally ripped off more fabric than intended. As a result of this incident, CBS was fined half a million dollars, the country was in uproar, and Janet Jackson took the blame. I mean seriously, you would have thought nobody had ever seen a breast before in their life. Janet Jackson was made to issue a public apology. But that’s not where her punishment ended. In addition to her public apology, her music was blacklisted by Viacom from their radio stations, and her music videos were blacklisted from their networks. Her next album, Damita Jo, flopped because she couldn’t promote it due to her music being blacklisted. She was also banned from the Grammys as well.
Justin meanwhile, got zero blame and zero consequences for Nipplegate (which is what this incident became known as) even though he was the one who ripped Janet’s costume. His career went unscathed throughout all this. His music wasn’t blacklisted from anywhere, he was able to attend the Grammys and perform at them and even won an award. He even was invited back to perform at the 2018 Super Bowl while Janet hasn’t been asked back since.
WHAT GOES AROUND, COMes around
In recent years, Justin’s past behavior has been reexamined, people have realized how douchey JT’s alleged past actions were, and the way he has allegedly treated women is coming back to bite him. What can I say, what goes around comes around. In 2021, the documentary Framing Britney Spears came out, which started conversations about Justin’s role in Britney’s downfall. People were infuriated, demanding that Justin apologize to both Britney and Janet for his role in their downfalls. Justin ended up releasing an apology to both Britney and Janet on social media because of the backlash, but a lot of fans of Britney and Janet believed the apology was too little, too late.
In 2023, Britney Spears released her memoir, The Woman in Me, and in it, she revealed that she had an abortion because Justin allegedly “didn’t want to be a father” and that she never would have done it if the choice was up to her. She also claimed Justin cheated on her in their relationship. This reopened the discussion on Justin’s treatment of Britney Spears, and Justin has been getting some long-overdue backlash for his alleged treatment of Britney and Janet. He turned off his Instagram comments due to the online backlash he received. His comeback with N’SYNC was ruined, and he was allegedly “shell shocked” since Britney released her memoir, even though he allegedly didn’t care about how Britney felt when he released a song telling the whole world that she cheated on him and broke his heart. I really hope that Justin will actually be able to learn from this all, and become a better person. I also hope that Britney is doing well, that she can be surrounded by people who truly care about her well-being, and that she is able to live a happy life now that she is free of the conservatorship. And I hope she knows that no matter how many bad headlines of her get published, that is not how everyone thinks, and that people are rooting for her.
