Britney Spears wanted Russell Crowe for Toxic duet

Britney Spears approached Russell Crowe to team up on a new version of her hit single Toxic, but he declined.

The Gladiator star joked with his followers on Twitter.com about the similarities between his costume in movie musical Les Miserables and the space-age air hostess outfit sported by Spears in the promo of the 2004 track.

The banter prompted a tweet from Spears asking Crowe if he would like to get together to record a 'mash-up' of the song, but he declined as he had not heard of the music mixing technique.

Crowe reveals the incident began when a follower sent him a message on Twitter comparing his movie costume with an image of Spears in the Toxic video.

He tells U.K. talk show host Graham Norton, "A guy sent it to me and I thought it was so funny I re-tweeted it. Then Britney Spears tweets me and says, 'Let's get together to do a song, a Toxic song mash-up'. I've no idea what it meant and I was like, 'It was just a joke love.'"