Justin Timberlake, former lead singer of pop boy band NSYNC performed at the halftime show for the 52nd Super Bowl and while his presence alone was already controversial, his performance was ruled as being nothing but disastrous by the masses.
This was Timberlake’s chance to redeem himself from his infamous Super Bowl performance 14 years ago when he “accidentally” ripped off a part of Janet Jackson‘s ensemble during the performance which resulted in a severe “nipplegate” incident deeming him intolerable by Jackson fans. He made an attempt to redeem himself by performing the same song, “Rock Your Body” and dropping out the lyric “bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.” The attempt was considered to be an avid failure at redemption.
His attempt to pay tribute to late music icon Prince was rather eerie being the concept of the performance was that of a phantom duet and the choice of song, “I Would Die For U” was sensibly, ghastly. Also, despite Prince’s widespread statements against Timberlake and his stark mindset against technology such as the use of holograms, the singer went on to make use of a video projection of the late legend along with an image of him of a large flowing sheet, which appeared as a generic version of a hologram.
Meanwhile Prince is in heaven like pic.twitter.com/lcsjAufAUF
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) February 5, 2018
IF PRINCE WANTED TO DUET WITH JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE HE WOULD HAVE DONE SO.
IF MICHAEL JACKSON WANTED TO DUET WITH JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE HE WOULD HAVE DONE SO.
Justin needs to stop FORCING these Frankenstein duets on dead black legends.#JanetJacksonAppreciationDay
— Samar @TheMJAP (@TheMJAP) February 5, 2018
I like Timberlake, but I’m bothered about the Prince “tribute”. Prince notoriously did not rock with Timberlake and he even dissed Prince on a song once. Prince was SPECIFICALLY vocal about not wanting people using him in performances after he died. Respect his wishes. Selfish pic.twitter.com/hAz2IM96yL
— Iman Crosson (@Alphacat) February 5, 2018
Once drummer/singer and ex of Prince, Sheila E, and his brother Omarr Baker both immediately denounced the use of a Prince hologram assuring fans that such a thing will be absent from JT’s Super Bowl performance.
Not only were JT’s failed attempts to redeem himself with the audiences of music icons disastrous, but apparently production was also a graphic mess. The audio of Timberlake was sketchy making him almost impossible to hear, at times he was muted and nearly silenced while his backup singers were fluently audible. Perhaps his microphone was null?
It is pretty clear, JT took an extra mile to serve a praiseworthy performance, but the extra mile ended up getting him lost on a road of avid admonishment. Watch Justin Timberlake’s full Super Bowl half time performance, below.
