Was This Part of Justin Timberlake's 'Cry Me a River' Sung by Someone Else? Here's What One R&B Star Says

Mar. 15, 2025

Justin Timberlake, Marsha Ambrosius.Photo:Kevin Mazur/Getty; Rodin Eckenroth/Getty

Kevin Mazur/Getty; Rodin Eckenroth/Getty

After demonstrating how she sings the “Cry me, cry me” ad-libs at the end of the song, Ambrosius, 47, told host Terrell Grice that she’s the “barbecue” — or rather, the one singing that specific part of the track, rather than Timberlake, 43.

Justin Timberlake performs during the ‘Forget Tomorrow World Tour’ at Madison Square Garden on June 25, 2024.Kevin Mazur/Getty

Kevin Mazur/Getty

“Apparently, according to Twitter, that was, ‘Oh, did you hear that falsetto? He can absolutely come to the barbecue.’ But years later, they will find out that that part was actually me,” she said. “And this is not to shade the rest of the song … He’s from Memphis. He can still come.”

“But, you know, Twitter’s relentless. I was like, ‘Okay.’ ‘She did the barbecue part?’ I’m the barbecue sauce on the song,” the musician added.

Ambrosius — a member of R&B duo Floetry, who has worked with artists includingMichael Jacksonfor his “Butterflies” song — then demonstrated how she sings the track’s pre-chorus (“You don’t have to say / What you did / I already know / I found out from”), before looking at Grice when she arrived at the word “him.”

“It was barbecue sauce I brought,” she later said.

A rep for Timberlake did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Saturday, Sept. 28.

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Justin Timberlake and Timbaland perform at a 2006 album event in New York City.L. Busacca/WireImage

As she toldThe Los Angeles Timesin 2014, when “Cry Me a River” was being recorded, the super producer told her that the track “had a couple of missing elements that he thought I could fine-tune.”

“I’m listening to what is this phenomenal song and at the time it didn’t have the hook all the way [or] the outro,” she said at the time. “I went into the booth, matched my vocal with Justin’s and did it a couple of times to get the feel, which is why barely anyone knows I’m on the song because we sound the same. I sang that ‘You don’t have to say, what you did' [line], did the outro. I was playing when I did it, and Timbaland kept it. I knew it was a great song in the studio. I didn’t know it would be that song.”

Ambrosius also previously shared a video onTwitter (now X)in 2020, when she sang the song’s outro for fans, many of whom responded, noting that they had “no idea” those were her vocals.

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Back in 2022,Timbaland spoke with PEOPLEabout the legacy ofJustifiedand “Cry Me a River,” when he explained that he and Timberlake were “already in the rhythm” when they made the song.

“I was already in a flow back then,” he said of the process. “So it’s like, I knew the track was already bangin', and when he heard it, it was gonna light a fire in him. He had just come from a concert, he was already in this mood of anxiousness, ready to do something.”

“We walked in the room,” he added. “He heard that. It just hit him. It was crazy.”

source: people.com