Saturday Night Live took a swipe at Justin Timberlake’s apology to Britney Spears in the latest episode of the comedy sketch show.
The series mentioned Spears for the second time in two weeks, but targeted Timberlake – who has hosted SNL several times – for his apology in the wake of the Framing Britney Spears documentary, on Saturday (20 February).
“Hey, ya'll! It's Britney, bitch!” Chloe Fineman said as Spears. “After the Free Britney documentary came out, I'm receiving hundreds of apologies a day.”
She continued: “I'd like to give a quick shout-out to our sponsor, the Notes app…. Are you looking to post a lame apology 20 years late? Go through the motions with the Notes app.”
The same skit referenced the #FreeBritney movement, prompting delight from fans.
Timberlake issued his apology after a major public backlash in response to the new documentary, which looked in part at his behaviour after splitting with Spears in 2002.
“I am deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right,” Timberlake wrote in Notes and posted to Instagram.
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In the post, he specifically apologised to Spears, and also to Janet Jackson for the backlash against her after their infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime show performance.
Last week, reporter Ernest Owens called out Timberlake for failing to apologise to Jackson sooner, claiming his new mea culpa was only in response to the documentary backlash, rather out of genuine contrition.
