3 Times Britney Spears Compared Justin Timberlake To Kevin Federline In Her Memoir

The heartbreaking and surprising confessions in Britney Spears' memoir, "The Woman In Me," have certainly delivered on their pre-release hype, and the iconic pop star's love life is no exception. Spears' intimate recounting of her journey sheds light on two of her most public and scrutinized relationships with Justin Timberlake and Kevin Federline.

Timberlake and Spears were the ultimate pop power duo of Y2K while they were together from 1999 to 2002, after which the media fell into a tailspin of narratives that painted Spears as a cheating heartbreaker and Timberlake as the mistreated new bachelor. Two years later, Spears' love life was in the limelight again with her marriage to dancer Kevin Federline.

Both of the "Stronger" singer's early 2000s relationships were two separate, captivating spectacles from the media's perspective, but Spears offers a different take in her memoir. To Spears, hindsight revealed just how similar her connections with — and treatments from — Timberlake and Federline really were.

Following her messy and dramatic split from Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears quickly fell into the arms of Kevin Federline — literally. After meeting at a Hollywood club in 2004, the couple quickly married and had two children. In Spears' memoir, she described how Federline comforted her with non-sexual physical touch.

"It wasn't about lust, it was intimate," Spears wrote (via Glamour). "He would hold me as long as I wanted to be held. Had anyone in my life ever done that before? If so, I couldn't remember when." The sad revelation seems to imply that the intimacy between Federline and Spears was one she didn't experience with her former beau. And indeed, Spears' retelling of her relationship with Justin Timberlake suggests their connection was more about lust.

As two young superstars in the already hypersexualized world of the rich and famous, Spears and Timberlake's relationship and sex life were often the topic du jour. The singer admitted to enjoying Timberlake discussing their intimacy openly because, as she wrote (via People), "Why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young-girl virgin even into my twenties?"

Britney Spears' memoir doesn't mince words about how her ex-partners mistreated her in pursuit of their own fame. She recalled Justin Timberlake growing distant from her while recording his first solo album, "Justified." Spears posited it was to make him feel more comfortable with using her as "ammunition" for his record. His "Cry Me A River" music video, which clearly portrayed Spears negatively, all but confirmed her suspicions (via Vanity Fair).

Indeed, Timberlake's ego seemingly took over after his split with Spears. And unfortunately, the heartbroken Spears would enter a similar fame-grabbing, toxic relationship soon after. "Kevin [Federline] was just so enthralled with the fame and the power. Again and again in my life, I've seen fame and money ruin people, and I saw it happen with Kevin in slow motion," she wrote (via Newsweek).

Spears blames the dancer's obsession with fame for why they divorced in 2006. And while she might not have comprehended the similarities of the two men at the time, Spears' perspective is now sharpened with hindsight. "Looking back, I think that both Justin and Kevin were very clever. They knew what they were doing, and I played right into it," Spears wrote.

Britney Spears' connection with Kevin Federline and Justin Timberlake wasn't the only similar aspect of the two relationships. Spears' memoir points out that both men were allowed to behave in ways that she wasn't. As she struggled to raise two young children while battling severe postpartum depression, Spears said she felt like everyone was allowed to live their lives without condemnation but her.

"I was being watched from every corner," she wrote. "Justin and Kevin were able to have all the sex and smoke all the weed in the world, and no one said one word to them. I came home from a night at the clubs, and my own mother tore into me. It made me scared to do anything. My family made me feel paralyzed."

Spears said she would seek solace from this pressure with friends who distracted her by taking her out partying, which led to the singer being a fixture in the tabloids alongside other young socialites like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. But, the singer argues, "It was never as wild as the press made it out to be" (via the New York Times), no matter what the Spears vs. Timberlake/Federline camps had to say about it.