We may never get another Britney Spears album, but fans can take solace in the official release of “She’ll Never Be Me,” a song co-written by Justin Timberlake during sessions for the seemingly retired pop star’s third album.
Originally released back in 2001, Britney, led by the Neptunes-produced “I’m a Slave 4 U,” opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and went on to bag a Grammy nomination. Marking the album’s 25th anniversary is an expanded edition set for a Nov. 6 rollout, “She’ll Never Be Me” included.
Timberlake is credited on the song, heard below, as a co-composer and co-lyricist. Though it should go without saying for anyone even remotely familiar with American pop culture at large, Spears and Timberlake were romantically linked in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Spears herself does not appear to have publicly acknowledged the track’s release, or the impending Britney anniversary edition. Spears’ official TikTok and Facebook pages, which, unlike her Instagram, she seemingly does not directly operate, have been promoting both in recent days.
It’s been more than a decade since the release of Glory, the ninth (and potentially final) album from Spears. In 2024, she told fans she will “never return to the music industry,” despite unfounded speculation that she was readying new material.
“When I write, I write for fun or I write for other people,” she said at the time. “For those of you who have read my book [2023’s The Woman in Me], there’s loads that you don’t know about me. I’ve written over 20 songs for other people the past two years. I’m a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way.”
