Britney Spears revives an unreleased song she wrote with Justin Timberlake 25 years ago: this is ‘She’ll Never Be Me’

Britney Spears has surprised her fans with the release of ‘She’ll Never Be Me’, an unreleased song she co-wrote with her ex-partner Justin Timberlake. The track was recorded for ‘Britney’, her third studio album, released in 2001, but was left off the final version of the record.

The song arrived on digital platforms on Friday, October 9 as a preview of ‘Britney (25th Anniversary Edition)’, the special reissue celebrating the album’s anniversary and which will go on sale on November 6. It is the first of five previously unreleased tracks that the singer will unveil before that date.

According to the credits, Spears co-wrote the track with Timberlake, Bradley Daymond and Alex Greggs. In the lyrics, the artist reproaches an ex-boyfriend for starting a new relationship after the breakup.

Greggs had referred to this song four years ago on the The Original Doll podcast. At the time, he explained that it was not left out because the record label did not like it, but because there were better songs to choose from.

The album ‘Britney’ spawned worldwide hits such as ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’ and ‘Overprotected’. It also included ‘What It’s Like to Be Me’, another songwrittenbyTimberlake, who also provided backing vocals and co-produced it.

Justin and Britney: A relationship marked by the breakup

Spears and Timberlake were a couple between 1999 and 2002. Shortly after the breakup, he released ‘Cry Me a River’, whose music video featured a lookalike of the singer and which, according to his memoir, ‘Hindsight’, he wrote in just two hours driven by anger.

Two decades later, Spears gave her version in her autobiography, ‘The Woman in Me’ (2023), where she asserted that no one would have supported her against the version Timberlake had spread.

With this release, the singer ends a three-year period without putting out music: her last release had been ‘Mind Your Business’, with will.i.am, in 2023.