After a New York Times documentary prompted a large-scale reevaluation of the career of Britney Spears last weekend, her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake started to trend on Twitter and Facebook. Even though Timberlake isn’t a huge presence in Framing Britney Spears, the documentary does include a vivid clip of him seeming to reveal details about their sex life, then laughing. In a post to his Instagram on Friday, Timberlake issued a statement about misogyny and racism in the music industry that included specific apologies to Spears and to Janet Jackson, who he performed with at the 2004 Super Bowl, “because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.”

“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,” he said in a Notes app screenshot. “I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”

In 2004, both Jackson and Timberlake were criticized for the so-called “wardrobe malfunction” at the end of the halftime show, but as time went on, some observers noticed that the event’s negative effect on Jackson’s career was profound, while Timberlake continued to be offered high-profile performance slots. In 2018, he was tapped to perform at the Super Bowl again, which drew even more attention to the matter. When Framing Britney Spears aired last week, it did not allege major wrongdoing, but it noted that his comments about their relationship, and choice to feature a Spears look-alike in the video for his single “Cry Me a River,” only encouraged more invasive questioning about Spears’s private life.

In the post, he explains why he decided to speak out now. “I also feel compelled to respond, in part, because everyone involved deserves better and more importantly, because this is a larger conversation that I wholeheartedly want to be a part of and grow from,” he said. “The industry is flawed. It sets men, especially white men, up for success. It's designed this way. As a man in a privileged position I have to be vocal about this. Because of my ignorance, I didn't recognize it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life but I don't not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”

The controversy over Timberlake’s history with Jackson and Spears comes just over a year after his last major apology. In December 2019, he apologized to his wife, actor Jessica Biel, after photos emerged of him holding hands with Alisha Wainwright, his costar on the movie Palmer. In the comments of Timberlake’s apology to Spears and Jackson, Biel wrote, “I love you” with a heart emoji.

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