The Convo About Justin Timberlake’s DWI Tells Us A Lot About His Current Levels of Fame and Power

 
 

By sTACY LEE KONG

Image: instagram.com/justintimberlake

 
 

I think you can tell a lot about how famous—and what kind of famous—someone is by the way the public reacts to their scandals. For example, when Britney Spears twirls too much, or wears too little, on Instagram, you’re basically guaranteed a few days’ worth of discourse and at least one hand-wringing op-ed about her mental health. This has everything to do with the space she occupies as a public figure, and how her various intersecting identities come into play in that space. The fact that she’s a woman is definitely part of why people feel entitled to comment on her behaviour, as does her past experience under the conservatorship, and her mental health in general.

In stark contrast, this week, Justin Timberlake was arrested in Long Island for driving while intoxicated, and the most common reactions from the general public were basically schadenfreude and memes. When TMZ reported that the arresting officer was so young he didn’t know who Timberlake was, prompting a truly iconic back-and-forth and many, many jokes, the internet cackled. And when the New York Times shadily described him as a “once… pre-eminent pop singer [whose] star has dimmed in recent years,” the people loved it. And oh my god, the Trolls snark. I can’t even.

I recently chatted with reporter Teghan Beaudette for an interview on CBC’s The National about Timberlake’s arrest, and during our conversation, she asked me how I thought this news would affect his career. And, honestly? I was thinking about the memes when I replied that the public’s reaction tells us more about where his career has gone than anything else.

Because take that in: Despite almost two decades of fame, 32 million albums sold, eight #1 hits, 10 Grammys and his status as the best performing male solo artist in the history of the Mainstream Top 40, according to Billboard, the news that he’d allegedly driven drunk made him the butt of jokes, not the topic of moralistic hand-wringing à la Britney, or even minimizing hand-waving as we sometimes see from fans of celebs who’ve made some misstep (see: Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, etc.). To be fair, it’s easier to joke about a celebrity’s legal trouble when no one was hurt and he’s unlikely to face any major consequences for his actions. But beyond that, I think the way he became a trending topic this week tells us something interesting about power and privilege—how fleeting it is, how easily a one-time A-lister can descend into irrelevance, and what happens once you lose that status.

Every Justin Timberlake trending story is a chance for his haters (me) to bring up his past behaviour

If you’ve been paying attention, you know the tide actually started turning for Timberlake years ago—some dedicated haters (ahem) have felt this way since 2004, the year Timberlake famously let Janet Jackson take the fall for Nipplegate. But there have been other, more recent flashpoints over the past two decades, including 2018’s Man of the Woods debacle, which culture critics almost universally interpreted as a return to whiteness for the singer, who’d largely build his solo career by cultivating adjacencies to Blackness, whether through professional collaborations with The Neptunes, clear references to Michael Jackson in his choreography or entry into Black spaces like the morning show on Hot 97, an influential hip-hop and R&B radio station in New York City. And don’t even get me started on the cornrows.

This album, however, featured much less of the R&B, funk and soul-infused sound that had become Timberlake’s signature, in favour of songs with titles such as “Flannel” and “Livin' Off the Land.” It was also accompanied by a whole new visual identity; the video promo for the album featured folksy instrumental music, cornfields and a healthy dose of working class cosplay. (Like, so much.) It was clear that Timberlake, like many pop stars before him, had decided he no longer needed the cachet, coolness and aura of rebelliousness that comes with adjacency to Black culture, and could safely return to his ‘real,’ white self, a move that was not only annoying, but actively anti-Black. As Candice McDuffy wrote for Glamour at the time, “white pop stars have a history of wearing blackness as a profitable costume, then discarding it the moment it stops being beneficial for them… This narrative of artists capitalizing on Blackness and then abandoning it as soon as it doesn't serve their careers is completely dehumanizing. When Black people—and their creative capital—are rendered disposable after serving their white counterparts, it reinforces the notion that our worth is solely attached to the labor we provide for others.”

(The question of why he chose that timing is an interesting aside, btw; culture writers branded 2016, the same year Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency, as the year pop went country, with Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper, Beyoncé and Tina Turner all releasing country-tinged projects that year, which was perhaps picking up on the country’s right-ward shift. I’d be curious to know if this project was a later addition to that trend.) (Also… we’re seeing a similar “global cultural shift” to the right today.) 

And of course, as Britney Spears’ fight to escape her conservatorship evolved from a niche story that only the most celebrity-obsessed were tracking to a mainstream news story, people were increasingly revisiting the world’s treatment of her, from mainstream journalists to late-night hosts to, yes, Timberlake. This only ramped up following 2021’s Framing Britney Spears and her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, both of which pulled back the curtain on his unsavoury behaviour. (The abortion story dominated my feeds for days.) But while I’ve written a fair amount about the ways Timberlake harmed Spears and Jackson, this week, the internet reminded me of other women who got trampled under Timberlake’s pursuit of grandeur, self-serving behaviour and lack of consideration. Think, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Simpson, Kylie Minogue, even his former protégé Esmée Denters. Oh, and his wife, Jessica Biel, for the cheating scandal, yes, but also for this photo, which I feel like tells us everything we need to know about this man.

This isn’t just holding a grudge, though

It’s interesting to think about how Timberlake was perceived at the height of his fame, and how he’s perceived now. “[His] lack of sensitivity would only really be interrogated years later,” Kyndall Cunningham recently wrote in Vox. “Many critical analyses at the [beginning of his career] were focused on Timberlake’s unique stardom in an era otherwise flooded with rappers and aging male rockstars. Some music writers were excited to name him the heir to Michael Jackson and Prince for his impressive vocal range, slick dance moves, and proficiency performing Black music, while others were still figuring out whether he was a hack… At one time, his pushing of racial boundaries in his music had made him a virtuoso. But in hindsight, it made him seem like a fraud. The year after he released Man of the Woods, Timberlake’s marriage also saw trouble after he was caught holding hands with his co-star in the film Palmer, Alisha Wainwright, leading him to release an apology. Meanwhile, the reappraisals of his relationships to both Jackson and Spears added extra precarity to his crumbling reputation.”

And that reputation hasn’t really recovered, largely because his tactics remain the same. In response to the DWI charge, a ‘source’ (a.k.a., someone on his team trying to shape a narrative, probably) claimed he has been in a “dark place” since 2021, when Framing Britney Spears came out and redirected attention back to his past behaviour. Blaming a woman for the consequences of his own actions? Super on-brand, tbh.

But the real factor at play here is capitalism, I think. As demand for his cultural production wanes, we see a corresponding decrease in his cultural power, which means people are less inclined to prioritize his comfort, make excuses for him, or look the other way when he does something wrong. Weaker parasocial relationships means less unconditional support flooding the comments of critique to shape or drive the narrative around him.

This is not to say he’s lost all cultural capital; his The Forget Tomorrow tour sold out 21 of the 30 concerts announced for the first leg of the tour, which prompted Live Nation to add more shows in Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, New York, Boston, San Jose and Las Vegas to meet demand. People loved his SNL performance, and his recent reunion with his NSYNC bandmates. But I’d be willing to bet those tickets mostly went to millennials in the thrall of nostalgia, not new fans, which is what sets him apart from the pop stars who are actually at the top of their games right now—and have fanbases who’d rather commit a minor crime rather than criticize their idol.

All of which is to say, if you hear me reacting to ever inconvenience in my life, whether minor or world-shaking, with the words “this is gonna ruin the tour,” just know that yes, I am mocking Justin Timberlake—and he very much deserves it.

And Did You Hear About…

Dirt’s 2024 Overrated List, which is really just unabashed, often hilarious, hating.

This super powerful reported essay.

Anne Helen Petersen’s analysis of what happened to People.

The Cut’s most recent scam-focused feature.

This smart Vox piece about the faction of Bridgerton fandom that’s upset about the queer relationship reveals in season 3.

Bonus: This week’s most irresponsible social media main character.

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CelebrityStacy Lee KongJustin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Cameron Diaz, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper, Beyonce, Tina Turner, Kylie Minogue, Esmee Denters, Alisha Wainwright, NSYNC