*NSYNC was at the height of pop music at the turn of the 21st century, with Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass dancing and harmonizing their way to four albums and worldwide fame. Nothing good lasts forever, though, and a year after the group released Celebrity — their final album to date — lead singer Timberlake decided to leave *NSYNC and pursue a solo career. Now Fatone is opening up about what happened between the bandmates. And while he insists that he doesn’t resent the Justified artist, I was surprised to learn that he’d been blindsided by Timberlake’s move.
All five members of *NSYNC have reunited after two decades to release “Better Place,” a single for the Trolls Band Together soundtrack, as Justin Timberlake reprises his role as Branch in the animated movie series. Joey Fatone got real about how he and his bandmates feel about Timberlake’s success and what went into the decision to reunite now, telling Yahoo!:
Justin came up to us about the idea and … it only fit right for us to do this together as a group. I think the message, the meaning, everything just all around, came to him. Because you got to really think about it, too, that he’s the youngest one of the group. In general though, think about it this way: He is at the top pinnacle of his career, for many years now. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nobody’s upset about that. We all love it and we all support it. But when you’re going to go backwards, do you think you want to go backwards? If you go back, would you want to split it four ways with other people again, or do your business that you built up yourself?
I’d hardly call returning to one of the most successful boy bands of all time “going backwards,” but I understand the point that Joey Fatone is making. Justin Timberlake’s star continued to rise after he stopped making music with *NSYNC, but he apparently knew this specific project only worked as a group effort.
Joey Fatone firmly shut down the suggestion that he resented Justin Timberlake for his career, saying the “beautiful” thing about what happened to the members of *NSYNC was that it led to different opportunities within the entertainment industry. However, it seems there might have been some tension between the Reptile actor and his bandmates, as Fatone revealed that he was blindsided when Timberlake didn’t return to *NSYNC after releasing Justified in 2002. He said:
I was not blindsided by the breakup; I was more blindsided as far as him coming out with music and not knowing that he was going to go and do an actual album/tour thing. It was more of, ‘Hey, I’m going to do some music, and then we’ll get back together.’ That’s what that was. And it wasn’t him — it was the record company. If it was him, then I’d understand it. When you’re younger, you think it’s that person. But then you look at the whole bigger scheme of things, and you go, ‘Oh, that’s why I wasn’t there for that.’ That’s the business. OK, I get it.
It sounds like Joey Fatone might have blamed Justin Timberlake back then for not returning to the group, but over time he came to understand that maybe the “SexyBack” singer wasn’t the one calling all of those shots when it came to career moves.
I love that the guys seem to have moved past any bitterness they may have felt over the years to be able to reunite for this project. Millennials sure freaked out on TikTok when all five of them appeared together at the VMAs, so could this eventually lead to a reunion tour for *NSYNC? The bandmates seem noncommittal at this point, but the fact that all is friendly between the members is a good sign. For now we’ll have to settle for “Better Place,” and you can hear Timberlake as Branch again when Trolls Band Together hits theaters on Friday, November 17.