super bowl halftime show

The NFL Reportedly Wants Justin Timberlake Back for the 2018 Super Bowl Halftime Show

Oh, rly? Photo: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

How quickly we forget, Nipplegate. According to Us Weekly, the NFL has invited Justin Timberlake back to perform at next year’s Super Bowl halftime show and are “finalizing” a deal that might also include Jay-Z. This would be Timberlake’s third time performing at the show, after his first outing with ’N Sync in 2001 (paired with Britney Spears and Aerosmith, for the hell of it), and, of course, in 2004 when he headlined it with Janet Jackson. If you were one of those kids whose parents shielded your eyes during that whole debacle, we regret to inform you that Timberlake exposed Janet’s breast on live television timed to his lyric “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song.” (She had a pastie on, so not quite, JT.) It was then that “wardrobe malfunction” was introduced to the pop-culture vernacular and is the reason the viewers at home now watch the halftime show on a five-second delay (thanks also to the FCC). Jackson was forced to apologize in a taped statement, was uninvited from the Grammys, and has never fully recovered from the public ridicule and shaming that followed her in the years since despite her maintaining it was an accident. Meanwhile, Timberlake, it seems, will get to rock whatever body part he wants to next year.

Justin Timberlake Might Get Another Super Bowl Halftime Show