JT apology not a p.r. stunt

JUSTIN Timberlake’s apology to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson is the real deal ,according to sources close to the star.

“He did this on his own, and it’s really from the heart. This isn’t about publicity,” a source told Page Six. On Friday, Timberlake posted a lengthy apology to the fellow pop stars for his role in how the media treated them following his breakup from Spears and his breast-exposing 2004 Super Bowl halftime show with Jackson.

Spears’ fans in particular have been slamming him of late, after the New York Times doc “Framing Britney Spears” rehashed their breakup. The film shows Timberlake bragging on a radio show that he’d had sex with Spears, and it posits that his camp pushed the narrative that they broke up because she betrayed him.

There have also been allegations that Timberlake allowed Jackson to bear the brunt of the backlash to their infamous halftime show, in which he ripped off her bodice.

He wrote on social media Friday that in the past “I fell short . . . and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”

He referred to Spears and Jackson specifically by writing, “I care for and respect these women and I know I failed . . . 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 realize it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life, but I do not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”

Our source added of Timberlake, “He realizes he needed to speak up and that it’s been long enough . . . He knows that he has sometimes benefited from these moments, and that he should’ve said something sooner to defend both of them. He means it, and he’s very happy that he’s able to speak up now. It’s a bigger conversation and he wants to do his part to help move solutions forward.”

Spears and Jackson have yet to respond to Timberlake’s mea culpa.