Music producer Timbaland has apologized to Britney Spears—and her fans—for saying Justin Timberlake should have "put a muzzle on her." Timbaland faced an angry backlash from Spears fans after a clip from an Oct. 29 interview went viral, NBC News reports. When an audience member at the Kennedy Center asked Timbaland about fresh interest in the Timberlake song "Cry Me a River" after the release of Spears' memoir, the producer replied: "She goin' crazy, right? I wanted to call JT, 'Man, you gotta put a muzzle on that girl.'" He suggested she had written the memoir to "go viral," the Guardian reports.
Critics called Timbaland's remarks misogynistic and "disgusting," per NBC. Timbaland apologized Tuesday night on TikTok "to the Britney fans, and her." "You know about respecting women — hell yeah," he said. In The Woman in Me, Spears wrote that she had an abortion while dating Timberlake. They were together from 1999 to 2002. TImbaland co-wrote and co-produced "Cry Me a River." In her memoir, Spears wrote that the video for the song implied she had cheated on him, making her seem like a "harlot who'd broken the heart of America's golden boy," Variety reports. (More Britney Spears stories.)
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