Justin Timberlake Responds to Britney Spears Discussing Their Breakup and Dancing to His Music

Justin Timberlake has responded to Britney Spears after she jammed out to his song “Filthy” on Instagram Wednesday and called their 2002 split “one of the world’s biggest breakups” while self-quarantining with longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari. Spears first brought up the tumultuous end of their relationship in a sassy dance video set to her ex’s song.

“This is my version of Snapchat or TikTok or whatever the cool thing you’re supposed to do these days,” she wrote alongside silly faced and dancing emojis. “As you can see I’m not really dancing folks …… I’m just very bored.” Clearly anticipating comments on her song choice, Britney added, “PS I know we had one of the world’s biggest breakups 20 years ago …… but hey the man is a genius. Great song JT !!!! Pssss if you KNOW WHAT’S GOOD !!!!!!”

With fans writing things like, “Can we have [Justin Timberlake] now dancing one of [Britney Spears] songs?!” Timberlake was quick to respond to Spears’ post, commenting a crying laughing emoji as well as several hands-up emojis. Spears’ beau Asghari was also sure to encourage her on the post, commenting, “Snapchat, Instagram TikTok, Facebook even Myspace was inspired by you.”

Timberlake and Spears first met on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in 1993, and grew up in the spotlight together before dating from 1998 to 2002. The two broke up after reports that the pop queen had cheated on her beau, which Spears addressed in an interview with Diane Sawyer, saying at the time, “I’m not technically saying he’s wrong, but I’m not technically saying he’s right either.” She now shares sons Sean, 14, and Jayden James, 13, with ex-husband Kevin Federline and has been dating Asghari since 2017.

Timberlake, for his part, has also moved on, marrying actress Jessica Biel in 2012 and welcoming son Silas Randall five years ago. While he has not publicly disclosed what caused the end of his relationship with Spears, she has long been rumored to be the inspiration for his song “Cry Me a River,” which Timberlake discussed in his book Hindsight: & All the Things I Can’t See in Front of Me. “I’ve been scorned. I’ve been pissed off,” he wrote. “I wrote ‘Cry Me a River’ in two hours. I didn’t plan on writing it.”