A public service announcement about drinking responsibly starring Justin Timberlake has resurfaced following the pop star’s arrest for a DWI in the Hamptons.
A clip from the 2001 Budweiser commercial – which features Timberlake and his former boy band, *NSYNC – recently went viral on TikTok, as viewers professed that the PSA “aged poorly”. In the commercial, *NSYNC members Timberlake, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, and JC Chasez are seen standing outside on the front porch of a house.
After ringing the doorbell, a father answers the door and is confused when he sees the boy band standing in front of him. “Hey, how’s it going? We’re *NSYNC,” Bass tells the father.
“You know, the group *NSYNC?” Kirkpatrick asks.
While the father still seems perplexed by the boy band, Timberlake chimes in: “We’re just going door to door to say thanks.”
“Yeah, for talking to your kids about drinking,” Fatone says.
Chasez explains: “You see, even with all our success, you’re still a bigger influence on your kids than we are.”
The text over the commercial, which aired during the 2001 Super Bowl, then reads: “Parents, the #1 group kids listen to about drinking.”
Meanwhile, the father goes back inside the house and tells his daughter about his encounter with *NSYNC. “Who was that?” she asks him from her bedroom.
“Just some guys. Lance, Joey, something about a sink,” he nonchalantly said, to which his daughter let out a scream.
On June 18, user @rmsthornton resposted a clip of the PSA to TikTok, where it received more than 200,000 views. “Don’t know if this commercial has now aged poorly [or] aged even better,” they wrote over the video.
In the comments section, several viewers pointed out the irony of the commercial after the “SexyBack” singer was arrested in Long Island on June 18 for driving while intoxicated.
“Oh my god, what beautiful timing,” one TikTok user commented. “Aged like a fine wine.”
“I see what you did there,” another person said, while a third user noted: “The dad not knowing who they are also parallels the cop not knowing who JT was.”
The 43-year-old Grammy winner was arrested on Tuesday at 12.17am in the wealthy Hamptons neighborhood of Sag Harbor, Long Island. According to a report from the New York Post, Timberlake blew through a stop sign when he left the American Hotel and was pulled over after he started swerving.
Timberlake “performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests” and repeatedly refused to take a breathalyzer, a complaint read. Officers observed Timberlake with glassy eyes and smelled alcohol on his breath. “He was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot,” police reported.
The New York Post reported that the unnamed arresting officer “was so young that he didn’t even know” who Timberlake was. The pop star claimed to have consumed just “one martini,” while Timberlake’s friends pleaded with cops to let him loose after the arrest but officers refused, according to TMZ.
Timberlake later appeared in Long Island court on Tuesday and was released without bail. He is due back in court on July 26. Photos captured Timberlake in handcuffs at a local police station, while his mugshot showed a red-eyed Timberlake in front of the camera moments after his arrest.
The arrest comes amid the singer’s “The Forget Tomorrow World Tour,” with two concerts scheduled to take place at the United Center in Chicago on June 21 and 22. Timberlake is then due to return to New York for two shows at Madison Square Garden.
Timberlake recently released his new album Everything I Thought I Was, his first record in six years. It was critically panned, with a two-star review in The Independent calling it “about as sexy as a soiled mattress.”
Notably, fellow pop star and Timberlake’s ex Britney Spears released a tell-all memoir in October 2023, titled The Woman in Me. Her autobiography revealed many bombshell details about their relationship, which lasted from 1998 to 2002.
