Justin Timberlake Gets Cryptic As He Teases His Return To Music

Justin Timberlake is seemingly gearing up to release new music — hitting followers with the tried and true social media clearing.

Eagle-eyed fans noticed the NSYNC star cryptically wiped his Instagram page clean this week, which musicians tend to do ahead of a new project to start fresh for their latest era.

JT was back in the studio multiple times in 2023, reuniting with former collaborators Timbaland and Nellie Furtado, as well as with his NSYNC groupmates for the Trolls Band Together soundtrack. The latter garnered rumors of a full-on reunion tour, but it was later reported that the “SexyBack” singer has a number of cities on hold for a potential North American tour in 2024 for just himself.

It’s been six years since Justin Timberlake last dropped a full-length project, which was 2018’s Man of the Woods. The album featured production from Timberlake himself as well as The Neptunes, Timbaland and more, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 293k album-equivalent units sold in its first week.

Since then, it seems he’s made headlines more for his drama than anything else. At the 2023 MTV VMAs, rumors of a fight between Timberlake and Megan Thee Stallion made the rounds after cameras caught them getting into what seemed like a disagreement backstage as NSYNC exited.

Meg was getting her hair touched up when JT leaned in to speak to her as he walked past. A smiling Timberlake was met by Megan shaking her finger and looking displeased after the conversation took place.

However, the Houston Hottie quickly clarified that there was no issue and it was all love.

“I just talk with my hands lol @justintimberlake love ya,” she wrote on Instagram, while Timberlake hopped into the comment section writing: “Real hot girl shit. Never change @theestallion.”

Timberlake also reposted the clip to his Instagram Story with a heart emoji.

Not too long afterward, an excerpt of Britney Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me went viral where the singer accused her then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake of adopting a “blaccent” when they met Ginuwine in New York.

“His band NSYNC was what people called back then ‘so pimp,’” she wrote. “They were white boys but they loved Hip Hop. To me, that’s what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very consciously to position themselves as a white group. NSYNC hung out with Black artists.”

She continued: “Sometimes, I think they tried too hard to fit in. One day, J and I were in New York going to parts of town I’d never been to before. Walking our way was a guy with a huge blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. J got all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo shizz, fo shizz. Ginuwine! What’s up, homie?’

“After Ginuwine walked away, Felicia [Britney’s former assistant] did an impression of J. ‘Oh yeah, fo shizz, fo shizz. Ginuwine!’ J wasn’t even embarrassed. He just took it and looked at her like, ‘Okay, fuck you, Felicia.’”

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The “Pony” singer later spoke with PEOPLE about the alleged encounter, however, and couldn’t recall such an incident taking place.

“Yeah, yeah, I definitely heard about it,” Ginuwine said. “People were calling about that. But I can tell you I don’t remember that happening. I truly don’t remember that happening.”

He added: “If Justin would’ve did something like that, I probably would’ve looked at him like, ‘Why are you acting like that?’ If he did that, that would be something that I would remember. That would’ve definitely stuck out. So nah, I don’t remember that happening.”