On the night of June 18, things went badly for Justin Timberlake in the early hours of the morning when a young police officer pulled him over and fined him a drunk driving ticket. A new album and a tour were trying to get him back on track. But then came a dinner at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor—a short helicopter flight from New York—a night out with friends, and one supposedly too many Martinis. When he got behind the wheel, everything went wrong, literally. Timberlake was weaving down the street when a young police officer pulled him over and fined him for drunk driving: he wasn’t driving in the correct lane, he ran a stop sign, and he refused to take a breathalyzer test.
In just a couple of hours the news spread around the world, but, as often happens on these occasions, it took a minute to become a talking point and become part of popular culture (only time will tell if it lasts). The mugshot didn’t take much longer. But probably the most global were the jokes about his conversation about sea bream with the officer, who didn’t even recognize the 10-time Grammy winner, who achieved his last number 1 on the charts for more than eight years, with Can’t stop the feelingfrom the soundtrack of the children’s film Trollsand Time He called it the worst song of the year. “This is going to ruin the tour,” Timberlake allegedly said. “What tour?” the boy asked, without having any idea who he was talking to. “The world tour!” he replied, in a conversation that has become, along with Timberlake’s red eyes in his police portrait, viral content. All of this helped to build a story of an artist who seems to have lived his best moments years ago and whose arrest was the final straw that turned him into a walking meme and the target of criticism.
It is true that the singer, who first rose to fame as a Disney child (alongside other stars such as Christina Aguilera and Ryan Gosling), lived his golden age 20 years ago, when he was a young talent leading a successful band, N’Sync, following in the footsteps of Take That and Backstreet Boys. At that time, since the boom of the 2000s, everything was looked at with a smile. His resentment turned into a song (and repeated mockery, even on national television) towards his ex, Britney Spears, or his embarrassing lifting of Janet Jackson’s nipple shield at the 2004 Super Bowl were not viewed with the magnifying glass with which they are viewed 20 years later, where they are seen as clear episodes of a machismo that was difficult to contemplate at that time.
But time puts everything in its place, including Timberlake. And if anyone had to settle accounts, it was Britney Spears. The singer has remained silent for 15 years. Partly by her own choice (the overexposure was exhausting) and partly because she has remained under the legal guardianship of her father, and therefore tied hand and foot, for 13 years. That is why, when, in mid-October, the singer began to publish extracts from her long-awaited book, The woman I amand announced that her fans deserved to “hear it directly” from her, many will search for Justin’s name among the pages.
Speaking about her first big public boyfriend, she said not only that he had dumped her via text message, without a face-to-face conversation, but that she had also become pregnant during that relationship, when she must have been just 18 years old. “It was a surprise, but, for me, not a tragedy,” she said. “I loved Justin so much. I always hoped that one day we could have a family. This happened much sooner than I had anticipated. But Justin was not at all happy about the pregnancy. He said that we were not ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were too young.” And then she clearly stated: “If it had been up to me alone, I would never have done it. But Justin was absolutely sure that he did not want to be a father,” she said of what she says is “one of the most painful experiences” of her life.
Then the public opinion turned to see Timberlake’s reaction. And it was not the best, but it was not new either. Almost a quarter of a century ago he presented her as the unfaithful one in their relationship and publicly exposed her on the subject. Cry me a river, In her video, she showed a blonde woman, similar to Spears, leaving him; the American press spoke of “a whore who had broken the heart of America’s golden boy”, but she now recounted in her book that nothing could be further from the truth: “In reality, I was in a coma in Louisiana and he was running around Hollywood happily,” she said, explaining that after a controversial interview with presenter Diane Sawyer she felt “exploited in front of the whole world”. The catharsis of the book has been her first and only one in all these years; he, however, has continued to talk about her and joke about that relationship and about the alleged virginity that they both agreed to maintain (something that did not happen, as it has since been discovered).
Come 2024, the situation has not improved either. If at the end of January Spears posted (and deleted) a comment on her Instagram profile praising a new Timberlake song, he came out a few days later and, on stage, when he turned 43, he said to the audience: “I want to use this opportunity to apologize… to absolutely no one, fuck.” A surprising attitude and, furthermore, far from being effective in helping him mend and reinforce his public image. Also very different from the only time he did apologize, when he was applauded for what seemed to be a really sincere comment, in February 2021. “I am deeply sorry for all the times in my life that with my actions I contributed to the problem, spoke out of turn or did not stand up for what was right. I know I failed. “I understand that I fell short in those moments and in many others and that I benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism,” he said then, addressing in particular “Britney Spears and Janet Jackson, individually”: “Because I care about them and I respect them and I know that I have failed,” he said then. In fact, he then opened a door to “a very broad conversation that I want to be a part of”: “As a man in a privileged position, I feel it necessary to speak publicly about it. Because of my ignorance, I did not realize it while it was happening in my life.”
That door, however, seems to have closed. His silence regarding Spears’ book, his sarcastic non-apologies, do not help to improve the situation. Showing up at a police station in a wealthy town on the coast of New York with red eyes, neither. And even less so when at his hearing on July 26, which he did not attend (he had a concert in Poland, but did not even show up virtually), his lawyer repeated, swore and perjured himself that he was not drunk: “I was not intoxicated. I will say it again. Justin Timberlake was not intoxicated,” Edward Burke stated before the court.
A problem with the court paperwork has moved the singer’s date to August 2. There his tour will be between Berlin and Antwerp, but without Show that night, although he is not expected in court either. It is true that this is a minor matter in the courtroom, but the outcome of the case, and the actions of his lawyer, may determine his public image for years to come.
