Justin Timberlake is finally addressing years-long speculation that his 2006 hit song “What Goes Around… Comes Around” was written about his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears.
“Maybe I should dispel a rumor at this point,” Timberlake, 45, teased during a Thursday, November 5, interview with Complex’s Re-Rank.
Fans have long suspected that Timberlake wrote “What Goes Around… Comes Around” as a pseudo-sequel to 2002 single “Cry Me a River”, which is widely interpreted to be a shady reaction to his split from Spears, 44, that same year.
“Is this the way it’s really going down? Is this how we say goodbye? Should have known better when you came around. That you were gonna make me cry,” Timberlake sings in the FutureSex/LoveSounds track. “It’s breaking my heart to watch you run around. ‘Cause I know that you’re living a lie. But that’s okay, baby, ’cause in time you will find … what goes around, goes around, goes around comes all the way back around.”
In this week’s interview, Timberlake suggested that “What Goes Around… Comes Around” was actually based on a friend’s experience in a bad relationship.
“[The rumor] has gone around forever, which is like, [the song] is not a personal story from mine,” he said. “It’s actually a personal story from a friend. I asked permission.”
Timberlake recalled that a pal was “just going through it and he was telling me what had happened.”
“I said, ‘Do you mind if I write about this?’ And I quote, my friend said, ‘Yeah, torch that bitch. What goes around comes around.’ And I was like, ‘I have to go. Thank you,’” he quipped.
Timberlake recalled that the lyrics to “What Goes Around… Comes Around” flowed out of him in “damn near 20 minutes,” adding that he’d rank the track as “one or two” in his discography.
“The interlude that goes with it … and then you put the video with it, there’s a 10-minute video we shot for it, like this just hit on all cylinders for me,” he said.
Spears acknowledged in her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me that she cheated on Timberlake with choreographer Wade Robson during their three-year relationship, though she alleged that her ex-boyfriend was also unfaithful.
The “Toxic” singer subsequently “apologized for some of the things [she] wrote about” in her autobiography before walking back the statement days later.
“Someeone told me someone was talking s*** 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,” she wrote via Instagram in February 2024.
In January 2024, Timberlake defiantly told told a New York City concert crowd that he was going to “apologize to absolutely f***ing nobody.”
Fans may learn more about Timberlake’s split from Spears in an upcoming four-part Apple TV+ docuseries about his life in career, slated to debut in December. Acclaimed documentarian Fisher Stevens has directed the project, which will reportedly feature an interview with Janet Jackson about her and Timberlake’s scandalous 2004 Super Bowl performance.
