After it was confirmed that Justin Timberlake would be performing at the Super Bowl LII halftime show, it should have surprised no one that he'd be dropping his Man of the Woods album on February 2, aka the Friday before Super Bowl LII. That's just how things go down.
Because of Justin Timberlake's most infamous Super Bowl halftime performance, it makes sense that Zane Lowe would get real with Justin during their Beats 1 interview to figure out how the hell he'd even be asked to come back after exposing Janet Jackson's breast during that Super Bowl XXXVIII performance in 2004. Let Timberlake tell it—it wasn't that much of a conversation.
"It's just one of those things," Timberlake said, "where you go, 'what do you want me to say, we not going to do that again.'" Delving deeper, Lowe asked how Timberlake dealt with the moment and the aftermath, which he admits he "stumbled through."
"I had my wires crossed," Timberlake continued, "and it’s just something that you have to look back on and go like, 'OK, well you know, you can’t change what’s happened but you can move forward and learn from it.'"
Elsewhere, Zane Lowe asked Justin why he chose to work with Pharrell now, as he hasn't worked with the Neptunes since his first solo album, Justified. After asking Zane if he wanted the "showbiz answer" (to which Zane says "no, I want the real answer"), Justin basically says it was label drama between Clipse, Pharrell, and their label Jive.
"Clipse was signed to Jive Records,' Timberlake begins, "which I was signed to. I don't know what went on with their deal, but I do remember that Pharrell was very adamant about getting them out of the deal. So it became from my understanding, it became challenging for him to work with any Jive artist at that point."
"If I'm being totally honest about it," Justin continued, "I was extremely hurt being caught up in the middle of it, but at the same time, I had a shitload of money stolen from me by somebody else when I was in the group, I had already gone through legal troubles, and I kind of felt like I'm at this point where I feel like I have so much ahead of me, I don't want to be in the middle of the record label and somebody that I consider a friend. So I feel like I kind of removed myself from the situation."
Makes sense. You can check out Justin's Clipse/Pharrell segment below. The full interview will air on Beats 1 on Thursday, January 18.
