“I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book. If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about, I am deeply sorry.”
This is how Britney Spears kicked off her Monday morning this week, taking to Instagram to issue an apology for the bombshells she dropped in her poignant 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me. In the since-deleted post, the star went on to praise ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake’s new song, “Selfish”—“soo good,” she wrote—which many took as a sign that Spears’s mea culpa was principally addressed to Timberlake. (Her endorsement of his new track, meanwhile, comes after Spears’s fanbase caused her song “Selfish,” from 2011, to rise on the charts this week—beating Timberlake’s in the process.)
But back to Spears’s apology. It’s no secret that the star’s depiction of Timberlake in her memoir was, well, less than flattering. In the book, Spears revealed that after she became pregnant with his baby, Timberlake urged her to get an abortion. “Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy,” Spears wrote. “He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young… I agreed not to have the baby.” Spears also recalled Timberlake often using a “Blaccent” while they dated, in a misguided attempt to “fit in” with the hip-hop scene that he admired.
Her portrayal of Timberlake may have stung—especially as he started promoting his sixth studio album, Everything I Thought It Was—but it was Britney’s story to tell. And isn’t that the point of a memoir? When the pop star took to Instagram to apologize to him this week, many fans felt disappointed that she felt the need to do so, especially when Timberlake has yet to issue any sort of statement on his end. One X user said it best, writing, “Why apologize? People [are going to] be offended, but it’s your truth—just live it.”
Women in the public eye like Britney have often been quick to issue public apologies…about virtually everything. Sometimes they are warranted, like when Drew Barrymore came under fire for crossing the picket line during the writer’s strike. At other points, their alleged misdeeds have been blown wildly out of proportion, like when Ariana Grande was caught licking a doughnut and had to hold a televised press conference about it. As if men haven’t done far worse, and said nothing!
Indeed, there is something deeply gendered about apologizing, in that women seem to do it far more. A 2010 study from the University of Waterloo found that women tend to apologize more than men do because they have a lower threshold for what they consider offensive. Yet this hardly feels like groundbreaking information; no less than Taylor Swift weighed in on this phenomenon during an Eras Tour concert last year, telling the crowd, “A recurring theme in my music is that I love to explain to men how to apologize. I just love the idea of men apologizing.”
Just yesterday, Timberlake underscored that very male tendency to resist admitting fault during a concert in New York City, telling the audience that he would “like to take this opportunity to apologize to absolutely fucking nobody,” piggybacking off of Spears’s Instagram statement. This is certainly a different tone than the one Timberlake took back in 2021, when he released a statement saying that he wanted “apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually, because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.” (The allusion to Jackson was a reference to her Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction back in 2004, for which Jackson absorbed all the backlash and Timberlake suffered none.)
Basically, Spears apologizing and Timberlake not apologizing couldn’t be a better example of the need for more men to step. It. Up! Embrace your inner Canadian, gentlemen, and don’t fear the word sorry; it’s okay to say it, we promise! Women like Britney, meanwhile, can take a well-earned break on apologizing; there’s not one thing wrong with sharing your truths and naming the people who have hurt you. In fact, she could stand to be a little louder about it.
It’s certainly Spears who got the last laugh in this whole debacle, though. Earlier today on Instagram, she posted a retort and backtracked on her apology. “Someone told me someone was talking shit about me on the streets! Do you want to bring it to the court, or will you go home crying to your mom like you did last time? I’m not sorry!”
