Chapter 5.
Stronger.
The night of the VMA’s in 2002, I could feel my bones shaking. By now it had been a while since I had seen Justin and I was wondering what would happen when our paths crossed.
I wore a little black dress, and it was the night where both Justin and I were going to show off our newly empowered life as singles. I walked the red carpet and the whole time my eyes scanned the crowd for the familiar face I knew as Justin’s.
“Brit?” I turned around, and looked into the very familiar eyes of JC.
“Hey Jayce,” I said with a soft smile wanting to ask about Justin.
“Hey, how are you?” He asked with a genuine tone in his voice, I smiled softly and looked down at my shoes.
“Um, I’ve been okay,” I replied with truth and he smiled putting a hand on my shoulder.
“You sure?” he asked and I just nodded. “Good.”
“Um, how’s Justin? I mean is he nervous?” I asked referring to the fact that Justin would be on stage in a few minutes. JC smiled and nodded.
“Yeah he is, scared shitless,” JC replied with a chuckle. “But that’s the kid.” I nodded and gave a smile of my own.
“Yeah it is, but he’s okay otherwise?” I asked.
“Yeah he is, thanks for asking,” JC said softly and made me look at him. “Brit?”
“Yeah?” I asked looking at him.
“Are you seriously okay?” he asked and I sighed.
“Yeah Jayce, I told you. I’m okay,” I replied and looked towards the door. “Tell Justin I said good luck.”
“Sure,” he said and without hearing another word I walked away.
“You think he’ll be okay?” I whispered to my mother a few minutes later just before Justin was to perform. My mother looked at me and smiled.
“Brit, he’ll be fine,” she said softly as the presenter announced him. “Now just watch.” I nodded and turned my head to the stage. I knew Justin may not be okay, because he was used to having JC and the others up there with him, but now he was all alone.
We waited and watched on the edge of our seats as the big fake radio rose from under the stage and opened up. As it opened up, the door shone and there standing inside this radio, was the silhouette. The silhouette of the man I once loved, and still did, the man I had betrayed.
Justin had performed amazingly, and by the end of the performance I could swear half the arena were standing up cheering for him. I looked over to JC, Joey and Chris and they all looked so proud of him, and I too found myself smiling.
After the show my mother got a call from my manager, saying something about NYLA.
“Brit, its Jon from NYLA he wants to know when you’ll be in town next to over see the books,” my mother said and I sighed.
“I don’t know mom, I told him that I was taking a break and didn’t want to be disturbed,” I said as I rolled my eyes. My mother sighed but handed me the phone.
“Just talk to him,” she said and I sighed taking the phone from her.
“Yes Jon?” I asked annoyed.
“When are you coming in to over see the books? We’re somehow having money disappear on us Brit,” Jon said, “As well as impending law suits from consumers who claim to have gotten food poisoning.”
“So what do you want me to do about that?” I snapped, “I told you Jon, I’m taking a fucking break.”
“I know,” he snapped back, “But seeing as you are the co-owner, I thought you’d like to know what’s going on.”
“Yeah well right now I don’t give a shit,” I snapped and slapped the phone down. That was the beginning of the end for NYLA and half of my personal life.
“I can’t believe that you just let that happen,” my mother snapped at me a few weeks later as we were informed that I was no longer a part of NYLA, we were in Europe doing the promotional tour for the new album. I just shrugged and looked out the window, because frankly I didn’t care for much anymore.
“Yeah well he shouldn’t have called me on my break,” I said bluntly, Justin still on my mind. My mother sighed and shook her head.
“Brit, you’ve gotta get him out of your head,” she said softly and I just shrugged again.
“Yeah but it’s hard,” I said and turned away from her not letting her see the tears in my eyes, I was still thinking of what I’d heard him talk about on the radio a few weeks after the VMA’s. She sighed, and didn’t say anything as her phone rang and she picked it up.
“Hello? Yes, hmm, let me ask her hang on,” my mother said as she picked up the phone, I looked at her strangely before she spoke. “That was Diane Sawyer’s people, they want an interview.” I sighed and just nodded, what ever they wanted, after all maybe I could talk about my upcoming plans.
“Okay, tell them I’ll do it,” I said in defeat, my mother looked at me and smiled supportively.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to,” she said and I looked at her with a smile.
“Its okay mom, I want to,” I said trying to convince her. “Tell them I’ll do it.”
A few days before the Diane Sawyer interview I was supposed to an interview on the Today Show but decided to pull out. Everyone thought it had to do with the fact that they’d aired a story about me with out my permission, but in all honesty, like my European promotional tour earlier, I was not up for the spotlight, so I pulled out.
I told myself that I’d only do the interview with Dianne Sawyer, then that would be it, but on that day things got tougher for me and I was just about ready to give up.
On top of everything that day, I was dealing with one of my favourite aunts getting ill and the press, so the day was just shitty for me. The thing that made the situation horrible was the fact that Dianne wouldn’t stop prodding into my life, and then the worst part was she had to bring up the age old Justin question and that really sent me into a flip.
“And maybe she has another kind of adolescent rebellion. London, insulting fans by showing up late to her movie premiere, no autographs, barely saying hello. In Mexico City, four months later, a finger for the paparazzi. And then five songs into her concert the last night of her world tour, she walked offstage in front of 50,000 fans. It's too dangerous a situation. And it all happens as she's starring as a kind of villain in the tabloid accounts of supposed jealous arguments and then a horrible break-up with her self-proclaimed first love, Justin Timberlake. You've had a rough year,” Dianne commented, I took a deep breath in looking at her because I knew she’d just laid all the cards on the table.
“It was pretty rough, yeah. Yeah, it was kind of weird. Oh, weird, hello. Oh my goodness, hello. Oh, strong Britney. Yeah, it was a weird time,” I paused and felt the tears in my throat as I thought of Justin again and covered my face with my hands. “Oh, can we stop this?” I was now having my lower lip tremble, I looked up at Diane then at my mother who was yelling at one of the producers, and I hoped she could stop this.
Then they played a line from one of my songs, ‘And every time I try to fly I fall without my wings.' I think then my heart began to slowly break.
“It’s another one of the songs on her new CD. It's called 'Every Time'. She wrote it. Listen to the words,” Diane continued not noticing my hurt, I wanted to kill the woman.
'My weakness caused you pain, and the sun's smile.' I weakly smiled and tried regain my composure knowing I had to continue because she wouldn’t stop.
“I was upset. I was upset for a while. We both … I think we were both really young and it was kind of waiting to happen and I will always love him. He'll always have a special place in my heart. He is such a great person,” I said softly hoping she would move on from the topic, I tried not to look in her eyes.
“But you've said, "I've only slept with one person in my whole life, two years into my relationship with Justin."
And yet he's left the impression that you weren't faithful, that you betrayed the relationship,” Diane stated, then a new set of tears threatened to fall and I sighed looking away as I tried to clear my head and answer the question.
“I'm not technically saying he's wrong, but I'm not technically saying he's right, either,” I replied and looked at my mother whose face told me to just get it over and done with, I nodded in answer. “So all this feels really awkward right now.” There was a pause and I thought she’d finished the questions, but she didn’t she opened up hurting wounds from September.
“Timberlake has made a kind of sport about public retaliation. On a popular morning drive radio show in New York promoting his album, he has a kind of gleeful confession about their very private life,” Diane said to the camera as if I wasn’t even there, I looked at her in shock as I had to re-hear all the painful things he said, each word making my heart break.
“Justin Timberlake is in the house. And I just want to ask you one question, did you fuck Britney Spears? Yes or no,” the radio announcer asked Justin. I held my breath and wondered what he would say.
“Oh man,” Justin’s voice came, and my head went spinning in a million different directions at the sound of it.
“Come on man,” the announcer asked, and I took a deep breath in. Please Justin don’t, I prayed even though I’d heard the interview before I knew what he would say but I thought that if I prayed it would change it.
“Okay, I did it,” Justin said more of like a statement, and they stopped the tape, everyone sitting around in awe. Even my mother whose mouth hung agape, I wanted to curl up and die. How could he have said those things? That was personal.
“Holly shit,” one of the guys off to the left of us said and there was a murmur of agreement, I felt eyes on me, they’d obviously not heard this before.
“It was a really weird time. There was like talk about our … what we did together and like really...” I began but stopped, what was I supposed to say in reply to that? He’d just told the world about our personal life in the bedroom, that now my mother knew about.
“Sexually?” Diane finished for me and I nodded blankly not listening to the question.
“Sexually and stuff. And I just felt very exploited and very weird. I was like, why is he going on those shows and they're asking him and he talks,” I said with a hint of anger to my voice that wasn’t intended. “But I'm sure he's like, you know, right, like right now you're asking me about it and it comes right out.” I then felt for some reason that he had betrayed me too.
“I’m going to sue them for every penny,” my mother fumed as we sat backstage a few minutes after the interview.
“How can they do that? Exploit you like that? And not even respecting you enough to stop when you asked?”
“Mom, it’s the press. It’s what they do,” I said with a shrug, I didn’t want to go into it, I was emotionally drained.
“I don’t care who they are,” my mother snapped pacing the room. “And how could Justin say those things about you? I’m going to have a talk with Lynn about that.”
“Mom please lay off it,” I said with annoyance, “I don’t care.”
“How can you not care Brit?” My mother asked me as she stopped pacing and knelt down in front of me. “This is your career we’re talking about and they’ve just tried to tarnish it by saying all that shit.”
“I know mom,” I said with a sigh, “But it’s not like it’s not ruined enough, Justin was just adding fuel to the fire.” My mother sighed in annoyance then looked at Mike, my body guard.
“Stay here with her, I’m going to talk to the producer,” she said and my mouth opened in protest.
“Mom, don’t,” I said but it was too late, she’d already left the room. That was it; I decided right then and there I was taking a break, a long break.
Chapter End Notes:
This story had parts of the Dianne Sawyer interview that Brit did after the break up so credit goes to that...
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