Britney Spears music video director details moment she got breakup text from Justin Timberlake while filming ‘Overprotected’ Kathleen PerriconeThu, August 6, 2026 at 6:10 AM UTC 0 Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears in 2000Credit: Dave Hogan/Getty Britney Spears took the empowering lyrics of “Overprotected” literally when she received heartbreaking news on the set of the 2002 music video. After 20 hours of filming, the crew was ready to film the final sequence, but the pop star was holed up in her trailer.
Britney Spears music video director details moment she got breakup text from Justin Timberlake while filming ‘Overprotected’
Kathleen PerriconeThu, August 6, 2026 at 6:10 AM UTC
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Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears in 2000Credit: Dave Hogan/Getty
Britney Spears took the empowering lyrics of “Overprotected” literally when she received heartbreaking news on the set of the 2002 music video.
After 20 hours of filming, the crew was ready to film the final sequence, but the pop star was holed up in her trailer. Unbeknownst to everyone, her boyfriend of more than two years, Justin Timberlake, had just broken up with Spears in a text message.
Chris Applebaum, who directed the visual for the Darkchild remix of “Overprotected,” decided to check in on his leading lady when he was stopped in his tracks by Spears’ choreographer Brian Friedman.
“He was like, ‘No, no, get away… It’s a bad situation,’” Applebaum recalled on the podcast, Hyperfixated with Joseph Shepherd. “Let me talk to her,” he insisted, but Friedman didn’t think it was “a good idea.”
As the two were going back and forth on how to approach the delicate situation, Spears’ personal assistant overheard and opened the trailer door. “Brit says you can come in,” she told Applebaum.
Once inside the trailer, he asked if everything was okay “and nobody said anything,” recalled the director. “And Britney’s like, ‘Um, well, something happened’... and she shows me her flip phone screen… and I saw that her boyfriend had written to her to end the relationship.”
Applebaum sympathized with the 21-year-old, telling her he “totally understood” if she wanted to end the shoot early.
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As he turned to leave, he noticed Spears’ heartbreak snack of choice: animal crackers.
“I don’t know why that inspired me, but I was like, ‘You know, the other thing you could do, you could get back out there and do a performance that’s so hot that you show him he just messed up the best thing that he’s ever had,” Applebaum recounted. “And she just like light bulb and was like, ‘that’s it you’re right let’s do that.’”
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“And she came out and that’s why that performance was so cool,” Applebaum said of the scene during the bridge of “Overprotected.”
When he showed Friedman the final product, “he just started crying,” recalled the director. “He’s like, ‘This does my dance routine justice in a way I’ve never seen before.’”
Friedman went on to earn a Best Choreography nomination at the MTV Video Music Awards, “which made me so happy,” Applebaum said.
Check out Chris Applebaum’s full interview on Hyperfixated with Joseph Shepherd below.
on Entertainment Weekly
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Source: Entertainment
Published: August 6, 2026 at 09:37AM on Source: RED MAG
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