There have already been a number of wild revelations from Britney Spears’ memoir, even before its release date, including having an abortion after getting pregnant with Justin Timberlake and nearly being cast as the lead of The Notebook over Rachel McAdams. One of the memories that we’ll read about when The Woman in Me is released October 24 involves the pop star’s connection to Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson — years before the duo became infamous for the wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl halftime show.
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake met as members of The Mickey Mouse Club, which in the mid-’90s included many other stars who would go on to successful careers in Hollywood, including Christina Aguilera, JC Chasez, Keri Russell and Ryan Gosling. The “Gimme More” singer opens up in her memoir about how fun the show was and how hard they worked, recalling that she “quickly connected with a boy named Justin Timberlake.” Via an excerpt released by People, Spears said:
[Once] at a sleepover, we played Truth or Dare, and someone dared Justin to kiss me. A Janet Jackson song was playing in the background as he leaned in and kissed me.
It’s mind-blowing that Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake apparently shared their first kiss while a Janet Jackson song was playing in the background, given the connection that Timberlake now has to the “Rhythm Nation” singer.
During the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show in 2004, Justin Timberlake joined Janet Jackson on stage to sing his hit “Rock Your Body,” at the end of which he ripped off part of her costume as he sang the lyrics, “Gonna have you naked by the end of this song.” One of Jackson’s breasts was exposed, with just a shield covering her nipple, for a brief second before cameras cut away. Janet Jackson was famously blacklisted following the performance, while Justin Timberlake escaped the incident largely unscathed.
Britney Spears, meanwhile, would go on to date the *NSYNC member starting in 1999 following their time on MMC. They broke up in 2002, with Spears catching a lot of flak after Justin Timberlake strongly insinuated that she had cheated on him.
Following backlash from the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears over how Timberlake had handled the breakup (i.e. hiring a Britney look-alike for the "Cry Me a River" music video and publicly discussing details of their sex life), he issued an apology to both his ex-girlfriend and Janet Jackson, saying he had failed them while he “benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”
It’s crazy to think that there was a connection between the three of them so many years before, thanks to that fateful Truth-or-Dare kiss. It will be interesting to see what else Britney Spears has to reveal in The Woman in Me, especially given all of the allegations she’s made against her family over the years and the rumors that she would reveal that she had affairs with A-listers.
The memoir is set for release October 24.
