Britney Spears Ran into Ex Justin Timberlake Right Before Hitting the Stage for Her Critically Panned 2007 MTV VMAs Performance

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 24 October 2023

The holidays may be two months away, but it feels a bit like Christmas morning to any celebrity aficionado: The Woman in Me, Britney Spears’ long-anticipated memoir, hit shelves today, to much fanfare. The anecdotes from the tome’s 288 pages are seemingly endless, but this one is compelling—over the weekend, Marie Claire detailed the painful breakup between Spears and her boyfriend of three years, Justin Timberlake, via a two-word text while she was shooting a music video in L.A. back in 2002. Five years later, in 2007, Spears had married—twice—and divorced—twice—and was fragile as she prepared to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards, Entertainment Tonight reports.

It certainly wasn’t the first time Spears had hit the VMAs stage, but a lot had happened since the last go ‘round, including a head shaving incident. A seasoned performer, for her performance of “Gimme More,” Spears didn’t quite seem like herself, and it may be for this reason—she ran into Timberlake backstage before she went on.

Justin Timberlake at the 2007 VMAs — Justin Timberlake at the 2007 MTV VMAs

“It had been a while since I’d seen him,” Spears writes. “Everything was going great in his world. He was at the top of his game in every way, and he had a lot of swagger. I was having a panic attack. I hadn’t rehearsed enough. I hated the way I looked. I knew it was going to be bad.”

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Of the widely criticized performance, Spears writes “There was a problem with my costume and with my hair extensions. I hadn’t slept the night before. I was dizzy. It was less than a year since I’d had my second baby in two years, but everyone was acting like my not having six-pack abs was offensive.” Spears continued that she “couldn’t believe” she was forced to go onstage: “I went out there and did the best I could at that moment in time, which—yes, granted—was far from my best at other times,” she writes. “I could see myself on video throughout the auditorium while I performed; it was like looking at myself in a fun-house mirror.”

"The Woman in Me" by Britney Spears

That same night, Timberlake performed with Nelly Furtado and Timbaland and took home Male Artist of the Year. “Justin glided down the runway,” Spears writes. “He was flirting with girls in the audience, including one who turned around and arched her back, shaking her breasts as he sang to her.”

The Woman in Me is full of revelations into Spears’ life—and is out now.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.