According with Cathy Dennis, “Toxic” was not meant for Britney Spears nor Kylie Minogue. It was written with Janet Jackson in mind.

In a recent interview to Ivors Academy, the responsible for writing the Britney Spears’ classic “Toxic” stated that she wrote the song with Janet Jackson in mind.

– That was written in Sweden with Bloodshy & Avant [Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg] and Henrik Jonback. I went over there to write with Janet Jackson in mind, said Cathy Dennis.

– I thought I’d have a go at writing something that would work for her and it didn’t come out at the time. We did have this song “Toxic”. It was started on day one of seven… Then took part of day two to try to finish it.

In the same conversation, the songwriter admits she struggled to finish the track:

– And because I couldn’t quite finish it, I said, “Look, let’s start on something else.” So we wrote another three songs that week and in my spare time while I was in my hotel room I was very busy editing my lyrics on “Toxic”. Eventually on day seven, which was the day I was flying back to England, I had run out of time.

“Toxic” was then passed up on by Kylie Minogue but ultimately ended up with Britney, going on to sell 458,000 copies and rack up 72.7 million streams as of October 2020.