The Halftime Show at the Super Bowl is a highly anticipated event for music lovers across the world, so when Justin Timberlake was announced as the performer every girl who grew up during the golden era of *NSYNC was basically in tears. But JT’s performance was not Justin Timberlake-esque, for a lack of a better description.
We should have known this performance was going to be ~trash~ when he came out decked in full camouflage. But regardless of his outfit, we need to focus on the real issue at hand, the performance. Right out the gate the performance was lackluster, with JT being out of breath by taking two steps and not even singing two notes, the performance was destined for failure. Whether it was pre-show nerves or not having enough time to rehearse the music, I don’t care. My inner 5 year old self was so hype to see and support the iconic JT perform his heart out at the Super Bowl, but was ultimately let down, except when he sang that song from the movie “Trolls” because that was iconic.
Moving onto JT’s more “problematic” moments of his performance, we’ll talk about the moment that confused everyone, when he sang a duet with a video of the infamous musician, Prince. Everyone knows that Justin Timberlake and Prince did NOT like each other, except if you live off the grid and/or genuinely don’t care about this kind of stuff, so everyone raised the question as to why he did this. Everyone thinks that it was a way to make amends with the late musician while others believed it to be another way to boost ratings, because everyone lives for drama and unnecessary things. Whatever the reason may have been, it was a risk JT shouldn’t of taken.
This wasn’t the only part of the performance that had millennial women burning their old *NSYNC t-shirts, while singing “Rock Your Body” Timberlake made a not-so-subtle nod to the time he pulled down Janet Jackson’s top during their performance at the 2004 Super Bowl. People were already mad that Timberlake was getting a redemption performance at the Super Bowl while Janet Jackson was and still is banned from performing at the Super Bowl because of this incident, during “Rock Your Body”, the same song they were singing when the incident occurred, JT stopped mid-song at the point where he pulled Jackson’s top and smiled at the camera. Honestly at this point JT was just adding fuel to the fire and the only redeeming factor of this entire performance was 1. The trolls song and 2. Selfie Kid. In conclusion, I no longer stan Justin Timberlake and this performance was a sad, disappointing funeral for my first celebrity crush. R.I.P JT, R.I.P.