As we noted in our story about the tour announcement, this comeback is coming at a strange time in Timberlake’s career. To be frank, it seemed to us like nobody was really asking for it.
Our readers seemed to be on the same page. Responses to the announcement were, let’s say, ambivalent at best.
“I hate Justin Timberlake,” read an email we received. “All my homies hate Justin Timberlake.”
The venue alone says it all. Dickies Arena holds 14,000 people. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but that number does raise some eyebrows compared with his previous North Texas outing. In 2019, he played two back-to-back nights at the American Airlines Center, which holds 21,000, then came back for round three a few months later.
Venues are booked based on perceived demand. Timberlake’s team is clearly aware that things have changed in the last five years.
His last record, Man of the Woods, was panned as a potential career killer. It didn’t just underperform — it tanked his credibility. Why is the man who once believably claimed to "bring sexy back" wearing a camo suit? Why did the instantly forgotten lead single “Filthy” contain the line “No, this ain’t the clean version” when there are no explicit lyrics?
Like Everything I Thought It Was, Man of the Woods was released after an extensive hiatus. During that time, Generation Z, the enemies of all things cringe and corny, came of age and became the tastemakers of pop music. In 2022, videos of Timberlake dancing went viral on TikTok for all the wrong reasons. Whereas millennials crowned him a generational sex symbol in the early 2000s, zoomers all seemed to have the same question: “Can someone come pick up their dorky dad?”
Being a lame dancer isn’t the only crime for which Timberlake is on trial. Not only has he been accused of cheating on his wife, Jessica Biel, and been lambasted for his role in derailing Janet Jackson’s career during the Nipplegate scandal, his previous relationship with Britney Spears is now being reanalyzed since the release of her memoir, The Woman in Me, revealed some jaw-dropping bombshells. The most notable story involved Timberlake pressuring Spears into getting an abortion and playing guitar in an attempt to soothe her during the process.@jaimefrench Replying to @Andrea Nicole Ask and you shall receive 😅 #khakis #justintimberlake #dancing #somethinginthewater #funny #spoof #overdub #checkoutmykhakis #dadshoes #dadclothes #rofl #sexyback ♬ original sound - Jaime French
Spears recently apologized to Timberlake seemingly out of the blue on Instagram.
“I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book," Spears wrote. "If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry."
Spears went on to say that she loved Timberlake's new single, “Selfish” (yes, that is actually what it’s called).
To be honest, it’s unclear why Spears felt the need to apologize. Maybe she felt bad that her own fans were mass-streaming a 2011 deep cut of hers also called “Selfish” in an attempt to outpace Timberlake's new single. Maybe she felt especially guilty that the stunt actually worked.
Our personal confusion notwithstanding, we understand the desire to keep the peace. What we don’t understand is what Timberlake did next.
During a free show in New York on Thursday, Timberlake appeared to mock Spears’ apology.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to absolutely fucking nobody,” Timberlake quipped before singing “Cry Me a River,” his venomous breakup song about Spears.
Like pretty much every choice he’s made during this contentious comeback, this comment is confusing given that he's already publicly apologized to Spears and Jackson, confessing that he "fell short" and "benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism." (These are all facts, whether he actually believes them or not.)
But maybe that was just Justin Timberlake, star of the Dreamworks franchise Trollz, speaking. Justin Timberlake, pop’s would-be bad boy, is sticking to his 20-year-old script: “Cry Me a River.”
While not addressing Spears’ comments outright, Timberlake revealed in an interview with Zane Lowe that the upcoming album, Everything I Thought I Was, will share an honest perspective on his past.
"I was able, on some of the songs, to look back at the past and have a real, not a refracted perspective of what it was,” Timberlake says. “There's never any truth, there's just everybody's perspective of what happened. But to really look at it and be able to metabolize and verbalize my perspective on it. … I don't think I've ever really done that before."
In this interview, Timberlake is wearing a cardigan and speaking in his natural Tennessee accent. He appears to even blush a little bit when Lowe praises his new music. This is how he wants to be perceived, as an emotionally mature and humble family man. He’s the bigger person in the renewed drama between himself and Spears. He’s the one who grew up and got his shit together.
And yet, he just couldn’t help himself when presented with the opportunity to mock her onstage. At the end of the day, that’s why all the homies hate Justin Timberlake. No matter how many Trollz movies he puts out, goofy Saturday Night Live specials he appears in or non-intimidating cardigans he wears, he’s still the same guy who humiliated Janet Jackson and threw Britney Spears to the wolves when she was at her most vulnerable.
He’s not a good enough actor to hide it. Maybe that’s why he needs this pop comeback so badly.
