| by
Dennis Hensley
Most boy band
fans are happy to show their devotion with a homemade ‘Marry
Me’ sign and a series of rafter-shaking screams. Some,
however, go a bit further. ‘N Sync frontman Justin Timberlake
remembers once such encounter like it was yesterday. Actually,
it was yesterday. “Some girl somehow got on stage in
San Diego last night,” says Justin with bewildered shake
of his newly-buzzed head. “I turned around and she was
right there. She just threw her hands around me and had a
death grip on my neck.” Though Justin is careful not
to seem ungrateful for such attention, he’s clearly
spooked by the surprise attack, as anyone would be. “My
arm got hyper-extended because it was caught between the security
and the girl,” he says, giving himself a quick shoulder
massage. “It feels better today.”
Though it’s
impossible to condone the San Diego fan’s WWF-style
stage rush, you have to admit the girl’s got excellent
taste. At this moment in pop culture history, Justin Timberlake
is arguably the most-desired member of the planet’s
most-desired band…and he happens to be dating the planet’s
reigning pop princess, Britney Spears. “I’ve always
wanted to do this,” he says reflectively when asked
what it feels like to be a superstar. “It feels like
fate, like it was supposed to happen. The only thing that
I can’t do comfortably is just go out alone in public.
But I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t trade my life
with anyone.”
At the moment, the 20 year-old prince of pop is kicking back
the in the deserted cocktail lounge of the Ritz Carlton Hotel
in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s an ironic interview locale--and
one that was well scoped-out by his bodyguard, Eric before
Justin came down from his suite—considering that if
the bar were open for business, which it won’t be for
a few hours, Justin would be too young to buy a beer. So does
he carry a fake I.D.? “No,” he says, “but
I don’t ever have a problem getting into clubs.”
He cracks a self-deprecating smile and adds, “I know
that’s shocking to you.”
Timberlake
and his bandmates have come to Phoenix to strut their stuff
for an audience of over 50,000 as part of their massive PopOdyssey
stadium tour, in which they showcase songs from their new
CD Celebrity. But these boys don’t just stand there
and sing. They fly in on harnesses 8 stories above the crowd,
surf along giant conveyer belts, and, at one point during
the kitschy but catchy “Space Cowboy” straddle
five futuristic-looking mechanical bulls and grind their little
asses off. It must be exhausting. “This tour is much
more relaxing than our last one,” reveals Justin. “The
stage is so big that it takes a day to set up which gives
us a day or two off in between shows so I can have a good
time. I actually went golfing this morning with a couple of
guys from the band.” Has having more time off between
shows allowed him to see more of Britney than in the past?
“Oh yeah,” Justin says. “When you get to
the point where you realize that you’re your own boss,
you make time to see each other. I mean, she’s here
with me now.” In that case, it must be killing him to
do this interview. “Oh, dude, it’s okay,”
Justin says reassuringly. “She’s out shopping.”
If Britney’s
anything like most girls her age, she’s probably out
picking up N’ Sync’s latest CD Celebrity, the
follow-up to their No Strings Attached, which sold a record-breaking
2.4 million copies in it’s first week in stores and
went on to sell over 12 million. Timberlake admits it’s
a tough act to follow, but hopes people will focus less on
the disc’s Soundscan numbers and more on its sound.
“Sonically and lyrically, I think this record is way
more advanced than our past records,” says Justin, holding
his only copy in his hands. “This album is pretty special.”
It’s
no wonder Justin is proud of Celebrity. He co-wrote and co-produced
seven of its thirteen tracks, a huge leap forward from his
one song contribution to No Strings Attached. Taking a more
active part in writing and producing is one way this multitalented
multi-tasker is ensuring that he’ll still be standing
when the teen pop boom is over. “I can’t tell
you what the next trend is going to be,” says Justin
with a shrug. “All we can do is do the music that we
feel at the moment. With No Strings Attached, I felt like
I really had a lot to prove. But with this album, I feel like
we’re in a situation where we are just comfortable being
who we are. I don’t feel like we have to impress anybody.
We have our fan base and if we can manage to grow with them,
then we’ll be fine.”
It also helps
to learn from the best. In the last few years, Justin and
his fellow N ‘Sync-ers have been able to work with such
industry A-listers as Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan and Aerosmith.
The latter was at this year’s Super Bowl in front of
a TV audience of 80 million people. Yet, he says he knew he
made it when R & B legend Stevie Wonder agreed to record
the harmonica part for the Britney-inspired N ‘Sync
ballad “Something Like You.” “I almost cried
when I was in the studio with him,” says Justin. “I
mean, he taught me how to sing, you know, and here he was
playing on a song that I wrote. It was a definite milestone.”
A MOUSE
IN THE HOUSE
Justin doesn’t
remember a time when making music wasn’t part of his
life. “If I could talk, I could sing,” asserts
the heartthrob who was born in Memphis, Tennessee on January
31, 1981. Though his parents divorced when Justin was one,
both later remarried, giving Justin two sets of parents who
he’s very close to. “I have pictures of my family
that I keep with me,” says Justin, who has two younger
half brothers from his father’s second marriage. “My
mother is my best friend. There’s nothing that I’ve
done my mother does not know about.”
Justin’s
first public performance was at an assembly his elementary
school where he crooned “I’ll Be Loving You Forever,”
a song made famous, ironically, by the definitive boy band
of the era, New Kids On the Block. “My mom videotaped
it,” says Justin, whose early musical influences included
Michael Jackson and The Beach Boys. “It’s pretty
funny, man.”
Not long after,
Justin donned five-gallon cowboy hat and boots for a losing
appearance on Ed McMahon’s Star Search. “That
wasn’t the greatest experience,” he says, laughing.
“I wanted to sing Percy Sledge’s ‘When A
Man Loves a Woman’ but they but they said, ‘If
you don’t do country song, then you can’t go on
the show’.” Justin had better luck at his audition
for The New Mickey Mouse Club. Not only did he land the gig,
but he wound up working with his future bandmate J.C. Chasez,
future girlfriend Britney Spears and fellow Grammy nominee
Christina Aguilera. Does he have a favorite memory from him
days as a mouseketeer? “I remember when Brian McNight
came on as the musical guest star,” recalls Justin.
“It was a moment you never forget. And then I just did
a duet with him for his new album. I was just like, ‘Wow,’
you know.”
Justin’s
membership in the MMC came to an end in 1993. N ‘Sync
formed in 1995, but it would be two years later before they’d
release their first CD, N’ Sync. “We practiced
in an old warehouse, where it was like 110 degrees,”
recalls Justin fondly. “We did the grind, you know,
a lot of club shows where the audiences just wanted to go
to the club. They don’t want to see five guys get up
there and try to do their thing.”
Like the Backstreet
Boys before them, the band broke first in Europe. “The
first time we heard ourselves on the radio we were in two
vans on the autobahn,” Justin remembers. “This
German guy was talking on the radio and all of a sudden our
song “I Want You Back” came on. Me and Chris were
in one van and we could see the rest of the group bouncing
up and down in the van behind us. We got off on the next exit
and got out of the vans and started freaking out. It was like
that scene in That Thing You Do.” Justin says he still
gets taken aback when he hears his music on the radio. “I
was in the grocery store and heard a Muzak version of ‘God
Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You’,” he
says, laughing. “I was like, ‘I thought that was
supposed to happen in about five years from now’.”
Of course,
things get a little crazy when you’re moving at the
speed of pop. In just a few short years, the band has broke
all kinds of sales records, sung on the Oscars and even headlined
in their own Imax movie. “That was cool,” says
Justin, “but I definitely have a big head.” Through
it all, however, the quintet continues to exude the kind of
frat brother chemistry that can’t be faked. “You
have to have a sense of humor about everything, especially
when you’re us and everybody makes cracks about you,”
says Justin who admits to getting a laugh out of the Eminem
video that poked fun at the group. “Even if we weren’t
N ‘Sync, we’d still be friends.” Asked about
the group’s various solo projects, like Lance and Joey
making a movie, Chris starting a clothing line, and JC getting
into writing and producing, Justin says, “We’ve
come to a place where we just can have fun and explore different
things and do solo projects. We’re different people
going in the same direction.”
BRITNEY
BABY…ONE MORE TIME
Justin Timberlake
admits he was sweet on Britney Spears during their time together
on the Mickey Mouse Club but things wouldn’t really
heat up between them until years later when they were both
on their way to becoming superstars. “I went through
a period of almost a year when I was 16 or 17 where I thought
girls were disgusting,” reveals Justin. “I had
just been burned twice so it was like, ‘Okay, I’ve
had enough and I don’t want to go to three strikes.’
I didn’t want to date anybody but that phase came to
an end really abruptly when I met her.” Still, Justin
wasn’t sure he wanted to risk getting his heart broken
again. “I really did try to fight it,” he confesses,
“but one day I just said, ‘I’m completely
enamored with you and there is nothing I can do about it’.”
When asked
what connects the pair, Justin’s eyes light up. “It’s
absolutely chemical,” he confesses. “When we were
younger it was that we were both from the south (Britney hails
from Lousiana). Now, it’s just that we enjoy each other
so much. She’s kind of like my safe haven, as far as
all this hoopla goes.” Ironically, when the pair go
out together, the hoopla seems to quadruple. “We have
to take an army with us,” Just says. “We usually
take 3 or 4 bodyguards but sometimes just two, one for me
and one for her.” Like a double date? “Yeah, there
you go,” he says with a laugh.
Though the
pair have been together for about two years, they didn’t
go public with their relationship until last year’s
MTV Awards. “It just got to the point where we were
like, ‘This is ridiculous’,” reveals Justin.
“In the beginning, we didn’t just want to be known
as that guy-who-goes-out-with-that-girl or girl-who-goes-out-with-that-guy.
But then we got to the point to where it’s like, ‘Let’s
just do whatever we feel at the time’.”
But going
public did nothing to curb the public’s fascination
with their relationship and more specifically, what they like
to do behind closed doors. “I just take it all with
a grain of salt,” says Justin, who shares a house with
Britney in the Hollywood Hills when they’re both in
L.A. “I have to do what makes me happy. I can’t
change the way I live for the press.” Still, there are
times, he admits, when it sucks to be famous. “Something
that really upset me is someone saying that both of us had
died in a car crash,” scoffs Justin referring to an
erroneous news report that aired on a Dallas radio station
in June. “It really scared me because we had just left
each other and I thought maybe something actually did happen
to her so I called her I was freaking out. She was kind of
freaking out too but as soon as we kind of heard each other’s
voices, we were okay. Then the phone calls from the parents
and the grandparents and the cousins started. It just sucks
that my family has to go through that.”
Given their crazy jet set schedules, Justin must have some
good advise on how to deal with long distance love. “You
just have to realize that there’s nothing normal about
it,” he says emphatically. “You can’t let
distance come between you.” Justin knows that when he’s
missing her, he can just turn on MTV and get a quick fix,
but he prefers looking at snapshots of the two of them together
over seeing his main squeeze frolic on screen with other guys,
“That’s probably the weirdest thing about this,”
Justin says when asked what he thinks of Britney’s super-steamy
video “Don’t Let Me Be the Last To Know.”
“Like it comes on TV and I’m going to sit there
and watch it? Same with things that I do, like dancing onstage
with girls. I’m sure that doesn’t make her feel
like a million dollars. That’s a real test, man. That’s
when you know that you really love someone, when they tell
you it doesn’t mean anything. You have to believe them.”
Justin says
the pair might record together in the future, but their immediate
plans include checking out a movie later this afternoon and
cuddling up tonight in front of the TV (Sex and the City and
The Sopranos are current faves). His idea of the perfect date?
“Relaxing at home. Candles. Talking.”
Justin Timberlake
may have the world at his feet--with private jet rides, exotic
vacations (see sidebar) and enough money to afford multiple
homes (one in both L.A., one in Orlando)—still he says
the simple pleasures are what matter most. “Throw all
this away,” he says, picking up a magazine with his
face on the cover and tossing it across the table, “and
I’d still have her. In the end, that’s what matters
in life.”
COSMO LIST
Tell us
about your first kiss.
My first
real kiss was in the 5th grade. It was good and lasted several
Mississippi’s. I saw the girl last year when I went
home. She’s still in my hometown. It was a bit nostalgic.
She was just the same as she ever was, a sweet girl.
What’s
your favorite make out music?
Anything old,
like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Al Green. II also like the
new India Arie album. She’s really good. And Tory Amos.
I could go on and on about what CD’s mellow me out.
What’s
the most romantic thing a girl’s ever done for you?
Britney surprised
me for my last birthday and took me away to this remote Caribbean
island. We stayed for a week and it was so cool. It was spiritual.
You felt like nobody else was on the earth. It definitely
had a Blue Lagoon vibe to it.
Did you
return the favor?
Yeah. I scored
for Christmas. I did the same thing except I took her to Aspen.
We went snow boarding and skiing. It was just us, shacked
up in a cabin.
What’s
your most regrettable fashion statement?
I had the
short bleached Eminem haircut before Eminem. It looks good
on him but it was not working for me. I don’t know what
I was thinking.
What was
the first record you bought?
Thriller by
Michael Jackson
What’s
your favorite tabloid story about N’Sync?
The funniest
was that Kathie Lee Gifford was falling in love with Lance.
Hilarious.
What’s
something about women that you just don’t get?
I don’t
get how you can be forgiven for a wrongdoing, but you are
not really forgiven. Three months later you will hear about
it. I believe it you’re going to forgive somebody, forgive
them. Don’t bring it up again. It doesn’t do any
good. It just shows insecurity.
What should
women know about men?
Something
that women should know about men is that no, no, no, hell
no, we cannot read your minds. That’s the other thing
I don’t get about women. How they say something that
means something else. Like when a woman says, “I’m
not going to get upset about it,” think twice because
they probably are. When I say something, damn it, I mean it.
Did your
parents give you a talk about sex?
No. I always
just knew what sexuality was and the number of things that
it was used for. I just understood that for some reason.
What’s
the weirdest thing you’ve ever been asked to autograph?
Boobs.
When was
the last time you stood in line for something?
When Brit
and I went to see Moulin Rouge in New York. It was a pretty
long line, all the way outside the building. It was cool.
I like doing normal things. I’m trying to hold onto
this concept that I can still be me.
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