Justin Timberlake

[scarletprincess]

Have they released a name yet for the second baby yet?

[discoprincess]

Breaking news! The original PAB has issued apologies to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson!

Quick. Someone check to see whether hell has frozen over.

In a statement posted to his Instagram account on Friday, the singer issued an apology to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson for "missteps" that he says contributed to "a system that condones misogyny and racism."

"I've seen the messages, tags, comments and concerns and I want to respond," he wrote. "I am deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right."

He couldn't have just seen the "messages, tags, and comments". People have been calling him out (especially for how he had managed to emerge from Nipplegate unscathed) for years. Years!

[carrier76]

Too little, too late. He can pound sand.

[cabbagekid]

Feb 12, 2021 22:30:09 GMT -4 discoprincess said:

[He couldn't have just seen the "messages, tags, and comments". People have been calling him out (especially for how he had managed to emerge from Nipplegate unscathed) for years. Years!

Exactly! Reading the first sentence of his apology, I was already irked because of that sentence. His apology was actually pretty good considering how statements typically go, but he could have omitted that entire first sentence and his apology would have vastly improved. Now it just seems like he’s apologizing because he keeps getting called out on it every Super Bowl.

[canuckcutie]

Meh. He should have apologized a long time ago. He’s a punk ass bitch.

[kostgard]

Yeah...no, dude. It’s good that he apologized, but he doesn’t get points for it.

He absolutely left Janet to twist in the wind so he could cover his own ass. For. Years.

And he absolutely threw Britney to the wolves. Like, even if she did cheat on him or whatever, be an adult about it. I mean, sure - I mean, go ahead and write your angry song and let people speculate (I enjoy The [formerly Dixie] Chicks album, and that album is largely dragging Adrian Pasdar for cheating on Natalie Maines, though this was after kids and 20 years of marriage, not a couple of teenagers), but don’t get on the radio and talk about her directly. And, okay fine, you did some stuff out of anger. But when you saw it absolutely raining shit on her, you could have done the mature thing and stepped in and said, “Look, back off, everyone. I’m over it, you should be over it, too. Give her a break.”

[Matilda]

I don't think it's a bad apology, and I don't think he's to blame for Britney's mental health issues. He was 20/21 when they broke up, it's not surprising that his reaction wasn't the most mature that you could ask for. I don't recall him trashing Britney at all post-Cry Me a River.

The Janet Jackson issue was immature, but you also can't convince me that it was all on him/all his idea.

Don't get me wrong, I still think he's a dick nowadays. I just don't think he should be the scapegoat for a music industry that exploits and abuses young women and men, and that he himself had very little power over. Britney's issues are complex, and I think her relationship and break-up with Justin was a tiny, tiny part of them.

[eclair]

I just saw a video clip of Justin dancing with Kylie Minogue and grabbing her ass unscripted, then later at an awards presentation with her asking if he could grab her ass again and her saying NO!, so this guy has a definite pattern of behavior.

[discoprincess]

Never forget:

This was a problem because up until she got into a relationship with Justin Timberlake, Britney had publicly shared that she was saving herself until marriage. But once the pair broke up, Justin begun to brag about having sex with Britney Spears.

For example, during his infamous Barbara Walters interview, Justin Timberlake bursts out laughing when asked if Britney had “kept her promise to wait until marriage”. And most notably, instead of just easily avoiding the topic during a radio interview when talk of Britney’s virginity came up, Justin decided to just directly answer the question on everyone’s lips: “Did you fuck Britney Spears?”

“Okay, I did it,” he proudly shared.

This is worse than a boy bragging to his friends about your sex life with him. This PAB bragged about it to the entire world. The internet never forgets.

Britney's take on it:

Perhaps it shouldn't matter, but the virgin vamp dichotomy was a large part of her image, and it couldn't last forever. After all, she did have a live-in relationship with Timberlake, who after their breakup jokingly told a New York radio station that the couple did have sexual relations of a sort. Spears cleared it up when she told interviewer Robert Haskell that she had only slept with "one person my whole life."

"It was two years into my relationship with Justin. And I thought he was the one. But I was wrong. I didn't think he was gonna go on Barbara Walters and sell me out," she said, referring to Timberlake's November 2002 interview on "20/20" in which he talked about their breakup and sex life.

Feb 13, 2021 7:35:03 GMT -4 Matilda said:

I don't think he's to blame for Britney's mental health issues. He was 20/21 when they broke up, it's not surprising that his reaction wasn't the most mature that you could ask for.

I wouldn't say that Justin is to blame for Britney's breakdown either. Regardless of Britney's mental health issues, a man bragging about his sex life (especially without permission from the other partner) in the media is a PAB thing to do. Justin knows he did it. He shouldn't have realized only at the age of 40 that was a PAB thing to do, and (maybe) an apology would be in order.

ETA:

Feb 13, 2021 13:32:04 GMT -4 Ginger said:

It's also not Justin's fault that he put out an amazing album in 2006 that was a huge hit because it deserved to be. (I can't stand the guy, but Sexy Back is full of great songs.) I haven't heard a good single from Janet since 2004. Maybe she's been putting out amazing music that I haven't heard because the music industry stopped supporting and promoting her?

It came out a while back that the former head of CBS Les Moonves had Janet blackballed after the "wardrobe malfunction".

Exclusive: Les Moonves Was Obsessed With Ruining Janet Jackson’s Career, Sources Say

[Ginger]

Apr 20, 2007 16:17:13 GMT -4 Matilda said:

I don't think it's a bad apology, and I don't think he's to blame for Britney's mental health issues. He was 20/21 when they broke up, it's not surprising that his reaction wasn't the most mature that you could ask for. I don't recall him trashing Britney at all post-Cry Me a River.

The Janet Jackson issue was immature, but you also can't convince me that it was all on him/all his idea.

Justin didn't do anything to Britney after their breakup that Taylor Swift hasn't done to half a dozen of her ex-boyfriends.

I fully believe that Justin and Janet mutually planned the Super Bowl stunt. There was a sudden and serious backlash that I don't think either of them was prepared for. They didn't coordinate on a defense, leading to that "wardrobe malfunction" excuse that nobody bought. The fact that Justin was allowed to skate by and move on while Janet was tainted for years was not, in my recollection, because Justin tried to sell her out and put all of the blame on her. It's because that's how the public and the media are.

He perhaps could have spoken up more in support of Janet in the ensuing years. It would have been less cowardly and shown more integrity than the way he tried to downplay it and avoid the topic as much as possible. I'm not convinced it would have actually helped Janet all that much.

It's also not Justin's fault that he put out an amazing album in 2006 that was a huge hit because it deserved to be. (I can't stand the guy, but Sexy Back is full of great songs.) I haven't heard a good single from Janet since 2004. Maybe she's been putting out amazing music that I haven't heard because the music industry stopped supporting and promoting her? But again, I can't lay the blame for that at Justin's feet.