CNN
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Justin Timberlake has many followers, together with just a few haters. The latter of whom most likely aren’t crying a river for the pop singer proper now.
From a fresh-faced Disney Mouseketeer to a breakout member of NSYNC turned-solo-artist and film star, Timberlake has had a powerful profession spanning three many years. He’s additionally had multiple second in an unflattering highlight.
Timberlake survived the general public scrutiny about his private life that follows good-looking tripple-threats on their rise to fame, an notorious Tremendous Bowl debacle, and, till Tuesday, he made it to age 43 with no mug shot.
His arrest in New York for allegedly driving while intoxicated introduced out ugly schadenfreude on social media from those that view the incident wherein nobody was harm as some type of popular culture karmic retribution. Timberlake, to them, is probably paying for his perceived previous remedy of each his former girlfriend Britney Spears and fellow performer Janet Jackson. A few of the similar individuals, undoubtedly, who helped streams of Spears’ 2011 single “Legal” spike after Timberlake’s arrest.
Right here’s a glance again at a few of Timberlake’s excessive and low profession moments.
Most boy bands normally have a standout member. Then curly-haired Timberlake vied with JC Chasez for that title when the 2, together with Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone and Lance Bass, got here collectively as NSYNC again in 1995.
With hits like “I Need You Again,” “Tearin’ Up My Coronary heart,” “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me,” NSYNC rode of wave of recognition within the late ’90s to change into one of the crucial profitable male vocal teams of all time.
So it was a match made in paparazzi heaven when Timberlake began relationship fellow pop star Britney Spears. The pair first met on the set of “Mickey Mouse Membership” they usually reunited in 1998, when Spears opened for NSYNC on tour.
Spears and Timberlake made their first public look as a pair after they sat collectively on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than they had been memorably sporting matching denim outfits on the pink carpet.
In reality, 2001 was an enormous yr for the couple: They carried out collectively in the course of the Tremendous Bowl XXXV halftime present, Spears had an iconic efficiency with an albino Burmese python on the MTV Video Music Awards and it was revealed that she and Timberlake had been dwelling collectively.
However they broke up the next yr.
Timberlake seemed to be pointing fingers at Spears when he launched his single “Cry Me a River,” which centered on infidelity and featured a Spears look alike within the music video. Success from that single and others on his “Justified” album helped to firmly set up Timberlake as a solo artist. His collaborations with producers The Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), Timbaland and Scott Storch burned up the charts and contributed to the soundtrack for the early 2000s.
Years later, in her memoir “The Woman In Me,” Spears dropped a bombshell, writing that she had change into pregnant by Timberlake throughout their relationship and had an abortion.
“It was a shock, however for me, it wasn’t a tragedy,” she wrote. “I cherished Justin a lot. I all the time anticipated us to have a household collectively at some point. This could simply be a lot sooner than I’d anticipated.”
Timberlake, she alleged, “undoubtedly wasn’t completely happy in regards to the being pregnant.”
“He stated we weren’t able to have a child in our lives, that we had been means too younger,” she wrote.
Timberlake by no means instantly responded to the content material featured in Spears’ memoir about their relationship.
After seven years of constructing hits, NSYNC stopped performing as a bunch within the early aughts, but it surely was an extended and loaded goodbye, bye, bye.
The band first went on a hiatus in 2002, the identical yr Timberlake launched his first solo album. On the time, Timberlake downplayed how his wishes to go solo might have an effect on the band’s future.
“There’s no purpose my solo profession and NSYNC can’t coexist in the identical universe. NSYNC is in no hazard. The break we’re on was a aware transfer,” he instructed the New York Post. “All of us wished to do it, and we had been able to do it. Acting at stadiums each evening for 50,000 followers takes somewhat out of you … The time was proper; we had been all in the identical zone.”
Timberlake by no means completely returned to the group, who’ve through the years spoken more about their break up. The 5 have, nevertheless, reunited just a few instances since, as soon as for a shock efficiency on the 2013 MTV VMAs and a decade later to current an award.
Followers have been clamoring for brand spanking new music for years and that intensified after they reunited for the tune “Higher Place” for the soundtrack of “Trolls Band Together.” Timberlake stoked that need this yr by together with one other tune together with his former group, “Paradise,” on his newest album, “All the things I Thought I Was.” He additionally brought them on stage to perform with him at a show in Los Angeles in March.
It’s been greater than 20 years since Justin Timberlake ripped Janet Jackson’s prime and uncovered her breast throughout their Tremendous Bowl XXXVIII halftime present efficiency, however many Jackson supporters nonetheless aren’t over it.
After the incident, a whole lot of hundreds of complaints flooded into the Federal Communications Fee, CBS (which aired the Tremendous Bowl) was fined and Jackson’s profession suffered. Timberlake, then 23, was criticized for not doing extra to publicly assist Jackson within the aftermath.
The pair denied the wardrobe malfunction was a deliberate publicity stunt and in her 2022 Lifetime documentary, Jackson said she tried to advise Timberlake after the controversy.
“We talked as soon as, and he stated, ‘I don’t know if I ought to come out and make an announcement,’” she stated. “I stated, ‘Pay attention, I don’t need any drama for you. They’re aiming all of this at me.’ So I simply stated if I had been you, I wouldn’t say something.”
The occasion “was blown means out of proportion,” she added.
“In fact, it was an accident. That ought to not have occurred, however everyone seems to be on the lookout for somebody responsible, and that’s bought to cease,” Jackson stated within the documentary. “Justin and I are excellent buddies, and we are going to all the time be excellent buddies. We spoke just some days in the past, and he and I’ve moved on, and it’s time for everybody else to do the identical.”
For his half, Timberlake publicly apologized to each Jackson and Spears in 2021 for his “missteps” through a social media submit.
“I particularly need to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson each individually, as a result of I take care of and respect these girls and I do know I failed,” Timberlake wrote. “I additionally really feel compelled to reply, partly, as a result of everybody concerned deserves higher and most significantly, as a result of it is a bigger dialog that I wholeheartedly need to be part of and develop from.”
Timberlake didn’t in his assertion supply particular examples of the actions for which he felt remorse, however his feedback got here at a time of renewed conversations about each his efficiency with Jackson and his breakup with Spears. (Spears was within the midst of a high-profile legal battle involving to her conservatorship and had discovered vocal supporters within the wake of the airing of “Framing Britney Spears,” a documentary inspecting the singer’s profession and the customarily shameful scrutiny she has confronted within the media.)
Movies and household
Past No. 1 hits like “SexyBack” off his 2006 album “FutureSex/LoveSounds” and “Mirrors” from the “20/20 Expertise,” Timberlake discovered success on the massive display screen in “The Social Community” and “Dangerous Instructor.”
He additionally discovered love, marrying actor and producer Jessica Biel in 2012. The 2 are dad and mom of sons, Silas, 9, and Phineas, 3.
“Love at first sight isn’t restricted to the primary time you lay eyes in your particular person. You make me imagine that… as a result of each time I have a look at you, I fall in love greater and higher than I ever might have imagined,” Timberlake wrote of Biel in a Valentine’s Day submit shared on Instagram. “Daily I get to share with you jogs my memory how fortunate I’m to expertise love with out limits or circumstances. You make me chortle like a baby and love with a fierceness that takes me aback.”
Their affectionate relationship has additionally confronted just a few hurdles. In 2019, images surfaced of Timberlake holding fingers in New Orleans together with his co-star Alisha Wainwright whereas the 2 had been filming the drama “Palmer” within the metropolis.
He publicly apologized to Biel in a statement at the time.
“A number of weeks in the past, I displayed a powerful lapse of judgment — however let me be clear — nothing occurred between me and my costar,” he wrote. “I drank means an excessive amount of that evening and I remorse my conduct. I ought to have recognized higher.”
He added: “I apologize to my superb spouse and household for placing them by way of such an embarrassing state of affairs, and I’m centered on being the perfect husband and father I may be. This was not that.”
5 years later, Timberlake could also be feeling remorse as soon as once more.
He has not but publicly commented on his DWI cost. An lawyer for the singer instructed CNN Timberlake was additionally cited for operating a cease signal and failure to remain in his lane. Timberlake is at present on his “Forget Tomorrow World Tour” and scheduled to carry out in Chicago this weekend.