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

Some fans’ favorite part of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” may not have been sung by the pop star — but rather by a collaborator on the track.

Marsha Ambrosius, the singer-songwriter who is credited as a background vocalist on the song off Timberlake’s 2002 debut solo album Justified, reiterated in an interview with The TERRELL Show on Thursday, Sept 26, that some of the tune’s memorable falsetto moments and outro were sung by her.

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.

“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 including Michael Jackson for 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.

While Ambrosius’s latest “Cry Me a River” comments are gaining traction after being shared by The Shade Room, this wasn’t the first time she’s opened up about her work on the Timbaland-produced single.

As she told The Los Angeles Times in 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 on Twitter (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.

Back in 2022, Timbaland spoke with PEOPLE about the legacy of Justified and “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.”