US tabloids are claiming troubled singer Britney Spears has pulled out of recording a duet with former boyfriend Justin Timberlake. The song, which Timberlake supposedly wrote specifically for Spears, was set to be produced with mixer du jour Timbaland.

A music industry source in the US said: ‘Timbaland set aside a week out of his crazy schedule to do this, and then, just before she was supposed to fly out, Britney abruptly cancelled the session and refused to do the song.

‘It’s crazy. She’s looking for a comeback and this would have not only have been a huge hit, but something she could have opened the MTV Music Awards with and really blown everyone away.’

It has been suggested that Spears and Timberlake would not even have shared a studio and that Timbaland would have simply mixed their separately recorded voices together.