“I wanna apologize for a number of the issues I wrote about in my ebook. If I offended any of the folks I genuinely care about, I’m deeply sorry.”

That is how Britney Spears kicked off her Monday morning this week, taking to Instagram to problem an apology for the bombshells she dropped in her poignant 2023 memoir, The Girl in Me. Within the since-deleted submit, the star went on to reward ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake’s new tune, “Egocentric”—“soo good,” she wrote—which many took as an indication that Spears’s mea culpa was principally addressed to Timberlake. (Her endorsement of his new monitor, in the meantime, comes after Spears’s fanbase brought on her tune “Egocentric,” from 2011, to rise on the charts this week—beating Timberlake’s within the course of.)

However again to Spears’s apology. It’s no secret that the star’s depiction of Timberlake in her memoir was, properly, lower than flattering. Within the ebook, Spears revealed that after she turned pregnant along with his child, Timberlake urged her to get an abortion. “Justin undoubtedly wasn’t glad concerning the being pregnant,” Spears wrote. “He mentioned we weren’t able to have a child in our lives, that we have been method too younger… I agreed to not have the infant.” Spears additionally recalled Timberlake usually utilizing a “Blaccent” whereas they dated, in a misguided try and “slot in” with the hip-hop scene that he admired.

Her portrayal of Timberlake might have stung—particularly as he began selling his sixth studio album, Every thing I Thought It Was—but it surely was Britney’s story to inform. And isn’t that the purpose of a memoir? When the pop star took to Instagram to apologize to him this week, many followers felt upset that she felt the necessity to take action, particularly when Timberlake has but to problem any form of assertion on his finish. One X person mentioned it finest, writing, “Why apologize? Folks [are going to] be offended, but it surely’s your fact—simply reside it.”

Girls within the public eye like Britney have usually been fast to problem public apologies…about nearly every part. Generally they’re warranted, like when Drew Barrymore got here underneath fireplace for crossing the picket line through the author’s strike. At different factors, their alleged misdeeds have been blown wildly out of proportion, like when Ariana Grande was caught licking a doughnut and needed to maintain a televised press convention about it. As if males haven’t performed far worse, and mentioned nothing!