Britney Spears Writes on Christina Aguilera and Ex-Boyfriend Justin Timberlake’s 2003 Cover

Britney Spears criticized pop star Christina “Xtina” Aguilera for performing on The Justified & Stripped Tour with her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake. Since they first met as Mouseketeers on The Mickey Mouse Club in the mid-1990s, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera’s friendship has been fraught with ups and downs. Just one year after Spears and Timberlake’s traumatic separation, Aguilera and Timberlake appeared together on the cover of Rolling Stone. In Spears’ new memoir, The Woman in Me , the “Toxic” singer calls out Aguilera for this.

In 2003, when asked about Justin’s ideal mate, Christina told Rolling Stone, “He and Britney made a great couple. I’ve known both of them since that time, and they kind of had their little crushes even back then. Britney has known him for such a long time, too—before he was Justin Timberlake, the star when he was just Justin, the kid on the Mickey Mouse Club. I don’t know, I have a feeling that there’s going to be some reconciliation. I know that they talk and everything, and it’s cool. I don’t think it’s over.” However, Spears questioned Aguilera’s intentions in her recent memoir, and her statements to the outlet at the time according to her were just “confusing”.

Spears wrote in her book, “They were together on the cover of Rolling Stone, him in a black tank top, looking at her with sexy eyes, her looking out at the camera, wearing a lace-up black shirt. In that story, she said she thought Justin and I should get back together, which was just confusing, given how negative she’d been elsewhere. Even if they weren’t trying to be cruel, it felt like they were just pouring salt on the wound. Why was it so easy for everyone to forget that I was a human being—vulnerable enough that these headlines could leave a bruise?”

Aguilera previously mentioned seeing Spears again during MTV VMA preparations in a 2004 interview with Blender magazine. She said, “Every time I tried to start a conversation with her— well, let’s just say she seemed nervous the whole time. She seems to me like a lost little girl, someone who [desperately] needs guidance.” During her own interview that year with Blender, Spears shot off Aguilera’s story and said, “When someone has been rude to you so many times, it’s like, ‘You know what, Christina, I’m really not about the fake anymore’”. Both Spears and Aguilera have made peace with one another in public, with Aguilera going so far as to openly endorse the #FreeBritney campaign. Aguilera once said on The Enrique Santos Show, “I would love to [speak to Britney], I would always be open to that. It’s a subject that I definitely want to be careful of because I never want to speak out of turn about somebody that I have so much respect and admiration for. But, I’m so happy [for her].”