Justin Timberlake Says He Means ‘No Disrespect’ Before ‘Cry Me a River’ Performance

Justin Timberlake took the stage for a surprise concert at the opening festivities for Fontainebleau in Las Vegas on Wednesday night (Dec. 13), where he performed for the second time since Britney Spears’ tell-all memoir hit shelves in October.

In a video shared by Rolling Stone, Timberlake seemed to address Spears before “Cry Me a River,” which Spears noted she was used as “ammunition” in the 2003 track’s music video. “No disrespect,” Timberlake said to the crowd, before diving into the song.

“Cry Me a River” — which was inspired by Timberlake’s breakup from Spears — was released as the second single from JT’s debut solo album, Justified. The song charted at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and its music video shows Timberlake breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and casts a Britney look-alike as the ex, complete with her signature newsboy hat and even a matching tattoo.

“I felt like I had been exploited [and] set up in front of the whole world,” Spears wrote in her memoir, The Woman In Me, which featured a number of other bombshells from their highly publicized relationship, which spanned from 1999 to 2002. In the memoir, Spears claimed that she had an abortion during their relationship. “If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it, and yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father,” she wrote. “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”