The year was 2004. Justin Timberlake was one of the biggest stars in the world. The blond, curly-haired heartthrob from the boy band NSYNC had risen to fame, in part, thanks to his hot relationship with another pop star, Britney Spears.
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But when that relationship fizzled and Timberlake went solo, earning more attention thanks to his sordid breakup song, “Cry Me a River,” new roads opened in front of him. One of those was a new friendship with another pop star, Janet Jackson.
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Let’s dive into the history, shall we?
1998: The Tour
In 1998, NSYNC went on tour with Janet Jackson. The harmony-driven boy band was the opening act on the big star’s The Velvet Rope Tour, giving NSYNC some much-needed road experience and street credibility, partnering with then-one of the biggest names in music.
That tour included some provocative imagery, which included Jackson dressed in a skin-tight body suit that, well, accentuated her chest and showed possible nipple jewelry underneath. Why this is worth noting is because Timberlake and Jackson would get into hot water just a few years later thanks to similar provocative physicality.
2004: “Shocking Moments”
Fast-forward five or six years and Jackson and Timberlake were rumored to be dating. It was the height of their careers and they were set to play the Super Bowl. Timberlake’s 2002 debut solo album hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts and Jackson had just released her hit LP, All for You, in 2001. Good times. Until it wasn’t.
Ahead of the performance during the Super Bowl in February of 2004, which featured Tom Brady’s New England Patriots against the Carolina Panthers, Jackson’s choreographer announced some “shocking moments” planned for Jackson’s set.
“I don’t think the Super Bowl has ever seen a performance like this,” choreographer Gil Duldulao said. “The dancing is great. She’s more stylized, she’s more feminine, she’s more a woman as she dances this time around. There are some shocking moments in there too.”
Many Guests
During the set, Jessica Simpson announced a marching band, P. Diddy, Nelly, and Kid Rock all performed. And then Timberlake came up to sing his hit, “Rock Your Body.” At the end, Timberlake sang the line, Better have you naked by the end of this song. Then he tore away part of Jackson’s dress, revealing her nearly bare breast. (She only had on a piece of nipple jewelry.)
Some 100 million people saw the “malfunction,” which to some didn’t seem as much like a mistake of props as a mistake of judgment. But it would seem that Timberlake’s tear away was meant to reveal a red bra underneath the costume, not the nearly bare breast. Jackson said as much to Oprah a few years later.
Crying, Healing
Reports since the event say that Jackson felt humiliated by the performance and that she was crying backstage. She also left the football stadium quickly and flew away from the event. Timberlake, though, stayed and fielded questions.
“I am sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance at the Super Bowl,” Timberlake said in a statement to MTV News. “It was not intentional and is regrettable.”
And MTV added: “The tearing of Janet Jackson’s costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance. MTV regrets this incident occurred and we apologize to anyone who was offended by it.”
Since then, there have been several documentaries about the moment and about Jackson’s life, including Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson. In her own self-titled doc, Jackson has said she and Timberlake are friends and the whole thing has been blown out of proportion.
“Honestly, this whole thing was blown way out of proportion,” Jackson explained in the four-part doc. “And, of course, it was an accident that should not have happened, but everyone is looking for someone to blame and that’s got to stop.”
She added, too, that after the incident, Jackson advised Timberlake not to talk about it. She said, “I said, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything,’”
Jackson has also said, “Justin and I are very good friends and we will always be very good friends. We spoke just a few days ago. He and I have moved on and it’s time for everyone else to do the same.”
Aftermath
The day after the event, Jackson released a statement, saying, “The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended — including the audience, MTV, CBS, and the NFL.”
There was so much hullabaloo about the event, which included over half a million complaints, that the FCC even launched an investigation into the matter. And E! News reportedly received a statement from Jackson, saying, “Justin was supposed to pull away the rubber bustier to reveal a red lace bra. The garment collapsed and her breast was accidentally revealed.”
Jackson did not make a scheduled appearance at the Grammys later that year. “People involved in the production of the Grammy program confirmed that Ms. Jackson would either step down herself or be asked to step down,” wrote the New York Times.
She released a new album in 2004, Damita Jo, which went platinum but failed to hit No. 1 for the first time since her solo debut in 1984. Later, the founders of YouTube said Jackson’s “nipplegate” was one of the reasons they started the company. It was one of the first “viral” videos.
2006
In a 2006 interview with MTV, Timberlake talked about the incident, saying, “I’m a part of a community that considers themselves artists, and if there was something that I could have done in her defense that was more, that I could have realized, then I would have. But the other half of me thought to myself like, ‘Wow, we still haven’t found the weapons of mass destruction and everybody cares about this.”
He added, “It’s an understatement to say that it was sort of unfair if you consider it 50-50, I probably got 10% of the blame.” Also saying, “And that says something about society. I think that America’s harsher on women, and I think that America’s unfairly harsh on ethnic people.”
Today
While many remain upset that Jackson’s career seemingly took a nosedive after the event and Timberlake’s continued to rise, it would seem that Jackson doesn’t hold any negative feelings toward the former NSYNC star.
In an ESPN story published 10 years after the event, Michael Powell, the FCC chairman in 2004, said he played up his outrage for the sake of it. “I think we’ve been removed from this long enough for me to tell you that I had to put my best version of outrage on that I could put on,” he said while, according to ESPN, shrugging his shoulders and rolling his eyes.
Timberlake played the Super Bowl again as the headliner in 2018, stopping “Rock Your Body” before the now-controversial last line. Jackson wasn’t invited to perform for that show.
Photo by: Christopher Polk/NBC
