Back in July, in a post about Taylor Swift, I wondered why she gets called petty for writing songs about her exes while we are forced to incessantly applaud Justin Timberlake and his ringlets, now relaxed, like demented cheerleaders. There is no Taylor Swift revenge song as potent as JT’s Cry Me A River. You remember the video, I know you do. Justin Timberlake was the breakout star of *NSYNC because of Britney Spears. And he climbed on her back to become a smash hit solo artist too. This is math and it’s science and it’s fossilised FACT.
That was 14 years ago. Since then, well, he hasn’t stopped stepping on women: Janet Jackson after the Super Bowl and even his own wife, on the cover of PEOPLE Magazine celebrating their wedding, by jumping on top of her, making sure you know… eyes on him, ONLY eyes on him:
Amazingly though, even then he couldn’t escape the truth: that Britney made him. She shows up on the corner of that page, see? But as much as JT refuses to admit that he would be nothing without Britney, that hasn’t stopped him from using her, still, after all this time, whenever it’s convenient.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair Italia, to promote Trolls, which oh my God, he’s been doing all summer even though we’re still over two months out from its release, JT was asked “if there’s any truth to the myth that in order to create, an artist must be depressed and a bit tormented”. His response:
“It depends. In the past, suffering helped me write. ‘Cry Me a River’ was written in a moment of pain, and the whole world knew.”
Out of F-CKING NOWHERE, there she is again. He could have answered a thousand different ways. He could have tossed off any number of answers without having to invoke her. But he chose to go there. He chose to invoke Britney. You need Britney’s help to sell your movie, boy? Is that what this is? If he gets that Oscar nomination he’s so desperately hustling for, you think he’s going to credit her? For what?
For EVERYTHING.
