He’s no scrub.
Kandi Burruss rushed to her onetime collaborator Justin Timberlake’s defense after Britney Spears claimed the *NSYNC member used to speak in a blaccent.
“I don’t want anybody to, like, [put] down Justin because you’ve got to remember the times that we were going through at the time,” the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star told Page Six exclusively at BravoCon 2023 on Friday.
“That era of pop and R&B, it was a lot of boy bands that did, like, urban music, urban routines and dancing, the whole image. That was in at the time, and nobody was passing judgment.”
Burruss, who co-wrote *NSYNC’s 2000 song “It Makes Me Ill,” noted that a lot of “people are getting canceled” these days for things that were not “a problem” years ago.
“I just feel like that was young Justin. Leave him alone, y’all,” she said. “He was a really, really good guy.”
The reality star told us that she has not yet read Spears’ new memoir, “The Woman in Me,” but she plans to listen to the audiobook after hearing narrator Michelle Williams’ impression of Timberlake purportedly saying, “Oh yeah, fo’ shiz, fo’ shiz” during a conversation with “Pony” singer Ginuwine.
“I thought it was funny,” she shared of the clip, which has gone viral on social media.
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Burruss, 47, also revealed to Page Six that she once had an opportunity to write for Spears, 41, but the songs never saw the light of day.
“It almost came together one time. I forgot why it didn’t happen, but it was a production team that I used to work with out of Sweden. They were like, ‘Oh, let’s do some records. We’re supposed to be going in with Britney.’ And I don’t know what happened,” she recalled.
The Grammy-winning songwriter behind TLC’s “No Scrubs” admitted she is “mad” at herself to this day for not ensuring that the collaboration with Spears came to fruition.
“It was one of the linkups that I’m like, ‘Why? What was I doing? Why didn’t I make sure I got over there to get those songs together?’” she told us.
Burruss could not remember which album Spears was working on at the time, but she pointed out that the Princess of Pop ended up dropping “a really dope project” later that year without her help.
Spears’ memoir, which hit stores on Oct. 24, is filled with bombshells, including that she had an abortion during her three-year relationship with Timberlake, 42, who has not publicly addressed the book.
“The Woman in Me” topped the New York Times’ bestseller list last week with 1.1 million copies sold in the US alone.
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