Justin Timberlake allegedly battled with alcohol abuse for years before DWI arrest
Justin Timberlake has been forced to apologise numerous times over his behaviour. Here are his biggest controversies.
Celebrity Life
Don't miss out on the headlines from Celebrity Life. Followed categories will be added to My News.
From Mouseketeer child star to boy-band heart-throb and Grammy-winning solo artist turned Hollywood actor, Justin Timberlake’s decades-long career has seen him scale the heights of the entertainment industry.
The 43-year-old can now add police mugshot into the mix after his arrest for drink-driving. Despite his clean-cut image, scandal has never been far from the triple-threat performer, who is in the middle of his Forget Tomorrow world tour.
According to the New York Post, Timberlake, who has been arrested for driving while intoxicated in the celebrity haven of Sag Harbor in the Hamptons, has long struggled with alcohol.
“It’s not a secret. Everyone knows,” The New York Post quoted a music insider as saying. “He has a real drinking problem, a lot of weed — but a major alcohol problem, and he’s been hiding and masking it for years.”
In the early noughties, the Memphis-born star imprinted himself into the public consciousness as one half of what was then the world’s biggest celebrity couple.
His relationship with Britney Spears, who he knew from childhood when they both starred in the Mickey Mouse Club TV show, made him a household name.
Their famed appearance at the 2001 Grammys wearing matching denim outifts sent them into the celebrity stratosphere.
But behind the scenes, their three-year relationship was fraught with tension — Spears later revealed in her 2023 tell-all memoir how fears for her career led her to undergo an abortion after falling pregnant to Timberlake in her early 20s.
Admitting her own infidelities, Spears accused Timberlake of cheating on her “a couple of times” and alleged he used their break-up as “ammunition” for his first solo album Justified.
Spears claimed the song Cry Me River, and the resulting video featuring a Britney lookalike who cheats on Timberlake, painted her as “a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy”.
“The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood,” she wrote in her memoir The Woman in Me.
She then went on to blast Timberlake for not mentioning that he had cheated on her, too.
During a performance at the 2003 Brit Awards, Timberlake grabbed the bottom of Aussie pop princess Kylie Minogue.
Minogue fans slammed Timberlake in 2022 when the clip resurfaced, demanding that he apologise to her for the incident after claims Minogue had not agreed to be touched before the performance.
In 2004, Timberlake went viral for the infamous Nipplegate incident with Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl.
Jackson suffered an onstage mishap when Timberlake grabbed her leather corset and pulled it down, accidentally exposing her breast in front of 140 million viewers.
Timberlake later claimed that the “wardrobe malfunction” was “not intentional and is regrettable.”
The scandal tainted Jackson’s career and bruised her ego, while Timberlake came out of it relatively unscathed.
In 2010, Timberlake was hit with allegations that he had cheated on then-girlfriend Jessica Biel with Olivia Munn.
Cheating rumours again dogged the star, who was by then married to Biel, when he was photographed holding hands with his co-star Alisha Wainwright during a drunken night out in New Orleans in 2019.
Timberlake apologised for the incident in a since-deleted Instagram post, saying: “I drank way too much that night and I regret my behaviour. I should have known better. This is not the example I want to set for my son.”
In 2021, Timberlake issued another apology to Spears and pop legend Janet Jackson after public outcry stemming from the New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears and allegations of racism and sexism towards both women.
He said: “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.
“I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”
More Coverage
Originally published as Justin Timberlake allegedly battled with alcohol abuse for years before DWI arrest
Al Pacino’s baby mama’s wild dating history
Meet the woman that’s been dubbed the “Pete Davidson of celebrity nursing homes’ after dating some of Hollywood’s oldest bachelors.
Pop megastar spotted on Melbourne street
A group of fans were walking through a popular area in Melbourne when they spotted their idol going incognito.