Celebrity
Britney Spears Opens Up About Her Two-Week Fling With Colin Farrell
“We were all over each other, grappling so passionately it was like we were in a street fight.”
Twenty years after romance rumors swirled around her and Colin Farrell, Britney Spears gives more insight into their brief fling in her memoir, The Woman in Me.
In an excerpt published by Time on Oct. 20, Spears recalled the 2003 relationship that followed her and Justin Timberlake’s 2002 breakup.
A “club promoter friend” introduced Spears to Farrell, while he was filming the movie S.W.A.T., and the pair fueled rumors when they attended the premiere of Farrell’s film The Recruit together.
Brawlin’ With Colin
Spears calls their relationship “a two-week brawl,” writing that “brawl” was the only way to describe it. “We were all over each other, grappling so passionately it was like we were in a street fight,” she explains.
When they attended The Recruit premiere in January 2003, Farrell had put any romance rumors to bed, claiming that the pair were just friends. “We’re not dating. She’s a sweet, sweet girl. There’s nothing going on — just mates,” the actor said, per Entertainment Weekly.
Spears had reportedly left the theater that evening as soon as the cameras were gone.
Spears didn’t elaborate on why their fling ended but had been hopeful that something romantic could have developed with Farrell.
“For a brief moment in time, I did think there could be something there,” she writes. “The disappointments in my romantic life were just one part of how isolated I became. I felt so awkward all the time.”
Britney Wasn’t Over Justin Yet
During The Recruit premiere with Farrell, Spears had felt “vulnerable” following her breakup with Timberlake and tried to play things cool.
“As I had before when I’d felt too attached to a man, I tried to convince myself in every way that it was not a big deal, that we were just having fun, that in this case I was vulnerable because I wasn’t over Justin yet,” she recalls.
Spears writes that Timberlake had been attached to several women following their breakup, and she was still pining for him. “He was a girl’s dream. I was in love with him,” she says.
Major Memoir Revelations
Elsewhere in The Woman in Me, Spears writes about having an abortion while dating Timberlake, partying with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and drinking daiquiris with her mom when she was in the eighth grade.
She also recalls the paparazzi umbrella attack and says that she had shaved her head in 2007 as a way of acting out.
The book, which documents her career, relationships, and conservatorship, will arrive Oct. 24 on bookshelves.
