Britney Spears appeared to shade her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake with sweet tribute post for Janet Jackson on her social media.

The controversial popstar dropped a supportive message for Jackson in a now-deleted Instagram post for “keeping my dreams and heart alive.”

In the accompanying caption, the Toxic hitmaker penned, “Thank you to this beautiful lady for keeping my dreams and heart alive.”

“She’s always been the deepest and brightest woman at the same time. She went through so much but I feel she is someone I will look up to for the rest of my life,” Spears added.

“Thank you for your music and your divine way of untangling intelligence to a far more clear view than anyone could ever imagine.”

However, she posted an image of the cover art for Janet Jackson’s 1993 album, Janet, which appeared to allude to the controversy surrounding her performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII with Timberlake.

The post seems to be a diss at Timberlake as it comes amid Spears’ rift with the singer-actor. Their feud reignited after the popstar penned her bombshell memoir The Woman In Me last year.

In her book, Spears alleged that Timberlake made her abort their baby while they were dating from 1999 to 2002 and also accused him of cheating on her.

More recently, Spears threw love at Timberlake after he released his song Selfish and also apologized to him for her memoir in a social media post.

But instead of returning the favour, Timberlake shaded Spears during his concert in New York City when he said on-stage, “I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise, to absolutely f***ing nobody.”