Britney Spears fans have hit back at Justin Timberlake by getting her song ‘Selfish’ into the charts following the release of his new single.
READ MORE: ‘Controlling Britney Spears’ review: toxic conservatorship back under the microscope
Yesterday (January 25), Timberlake announced his new album ‘Everything I Thought It Was’ and its romantic lead single ‘Selfish’. The track marked his first solo release in over five years.
Following the release of his new song, devoted fans of the ‘Slave 4 You’ singer began to download her song of the same name from her 2011 LP ‘Femme Fatale’, causing it to appear on the iTunes Chart and reach the Number One spot in territories such as Armenia, Brazil, Chile and Mexico.
Selfish by Britney Spears has more #1’s than Justin Timberlake’s Selfish. Oh we won pic.twitter.com/ZsuQxM8YSp
— (@Martiijnn) January 25, 2024
#Selfish IS TOP 5. Britney Spears stans are the greatest people you will ever meet pic.twitter.com/LfDR0VkjyQ
— Aaron 🩵 (@ABeardedHero) January 26, 2024
This is wild!
Selfish — a 13 year old Britney Spears song off 2011’s Femme Fatale — is now the #8 song on iTunes because it has the same name as Timberlake’s new song and her fans are buying in protest #BritneySpearsSelfish pic.twitter.com/NY9mKqMIWB
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) January 26, 2024
I am STUNNED that Selfish by Britney Spears, a relatively unknown BONUS TRACK from her 2011 album ‘Femme Fatale’, is charting in the TOP 10 on iTunes 13 years after its release. pic.twitter.com/lSIBfTqNeb
— Joshua Pingley (@pingley) January 26, 2024
Spears and Timberlake dated from 1999 to 2002, until the latter allegedly ended the relationship via text message. Fans of Spears have had issues with the former *NSYNC member since he infamously called the pop icon out for cheating on him in his 2002 hit “Cry Me a River.”
Recently, Spears opened up about her split from Timberlake in her memoir The Woman In Me. Since the book’s release, the ‘Suit And Tie’ singer has been receiving major backlash.
In her New York Times best selling book, Spears describes the ‘Cry Me A River’ video as “a woman who looks like me cheats on him and he wanders around sad in the rain”.
She added that the media saw her as a “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy” when in reality she was “comatose in Louisiana” trying to mend her broken heart while Timberlake was “happily running around Hollywood”.
The pop star also revealed that she had an abortion while dating Timberlake between 1998 to 2002 because he thought they “weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives” and were “way too young”.
Elsewhere in the book, Spears opened up about how she could “barely speak for months” following her break-up with Timberlake.
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake in the audience at the 2000 MTV Music Video Awards in New York, in the United States of America on the 7th of September 2000.(Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)
During a during recent performance of ‘Cry Me A River’ at a surprise concert in Las Vegas last month, Timberlake hinted at the backlash he had received over his relationship with Spears.
Before jumping into the track, the singer said “no disrespect” followed by the lyrics: “Ain’t we all just entertainers / Think I’m stupid and contagious” from his collab track with Jay-Z, ‘Holy Grail’, and a sample of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
Spears then went on to seemingly responded to Justin Timberlake’s comment about “meaning no disrespect”.
In a post on Instagram, she shared a clip of a leopard standing between two pole-dancing men and a man standing upside down against a wall.
“Oh Jesus Christ, the stories … I could tell on the set of this one !!!” she wrote in the caption. “There’s always more to the story and that’s not even half of it !!! It was shot in Arizona 120 degree heat … 2 different version videos were shot for this song … most boys say “OH I’M SHOOK” !!! Psss I never mentioned how I beat him in basketball and he would cry … no disrespect !!!”
In other news, Timberlake recently announced his ‘Forget The World’ 2024 US tour, marking his first string of live dates in five years.
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