Justin Timberlake might want to forget past as ‘Forget Tomorrow Tour’ comes to Rupp Arena

The world of pop music mega-stardom is a bit like Kentucky weather. Just when you get used it, just when you find it comfortable and appealing, everything changes.

Well, maybe not everything. The patterns of recordings designed as charttopping vehicles for artists whose images have already been carefully coiffed have long been built on familiarity and audience expectations. Still, fortunes often shift quickly. Today’s hero can easily become tomorrow’s history lesson.

Exhibit A: Justin Timberlake, a seemingly unconquerable figure in the halls of pop royalty and, more importantly, bankability. He has been a celebrity since his teen years, when a role on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club led to a hitmaking run with the boy band NSYNC. Then came a carefully paced solo career that yielded a parade of platinum-selling, dance-savvy singles that included “Cry Me a River,” “SexyBack” and “Mirrors.” Estimated solo career global sales according to RCA Records: 54 million albums and 63 million singles. Tack on 10 Grammy Awards to confirm Timberlake’s titan status.

Now, travel with us, preferably not by car, to a more recent past — specifically, to just after midnight on June 18. Having had dinner in Sag Harbor, a Long Island village situated in the celebrity New York paradise known as The Hamptons, Timberlake zips through a stop sign in his BMW, gets pulled over by police, refuses an alcohol test and is arrested for driving while intoxicated.

All of a sudden, the artist already in the midst of a global tour with a pair of Madison Square Garden concerts a mere week away, was appearing in a very different venue for a special one-night engagement courtesy of the Sag Harbor Police Department. It even came with its own merch: a mug shot fit for a modeling agency.

Here is where fame reveals one of its more disparaging sides. Within days, one-liners popped up like kudzu all over the internet. The first of two examples from the social network site Reddit: “Did you hear that Justin Timberlake was arrested for drunk driving? I guess he was not N’Sync with the law.” And a second: “He’s bringing tipsy back.”

The topper came from a more familiar source, Ricky Gervais. The popular comedian/actor has been so open and unapologetic about his own drinking habits that he hosted the Golden Globes with a glass of beer at his side. After Timberlake’s arrest, Gervais posted this message to the singer, as well as to nearly 12 million followers on X: “Did you get the bottle of Dutch Barn Vodka I sent you the other day?” (Dutch Barn is Gervais’ own vodka brand).

Justin Timberlake new album ‘has not performed very well’

Timberlake’s stumble in Sag Harbor has been part of a very public year that is barely half over, a six-month stretch of unflattering news, some of it deserved, some of it distorted.

The most notable bit has been the odd performance of the singer’s sixth and newest album, “Everything I Thought It Was” since it’s release in March. The record entered the Billboard 200 chart at No. 4, an impressive debut for any artist. But given his past run of nearly immediate charttopping hits, the showing was viewed by many as disheartening.

“Justin Timberlake’s new album, ‘Everything I Thought It Was,’ has not performed very well,” wrote Hugh McIntyre in Forbes magazine in May. “The set, which was released in mid-March, was a commercial disappointment upon its arrival, and things haven’t gotten better for the project since then.”

Reviews weren’t exclusively kind, either. Britain’s long-running NME magazine summed up its sentiments on the album in a review headline: “Sullied superstar gets trapped in the typical.”

Adding to the realities of the album’s dull commercial showing was that fact that only two singles were released – “Selfish” and “No Angels.” The former barely crackled the Top 20. The latter didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100 at all.

By the time of Sag Harbor, “Everything” had turned to nothing by vanishing from the charts completely.

Justin Timberlake Rupp show technically a sellout, but tickets available

Despite all of that, Timberlake’s current “Forget Tomorrow World Tour” has become, so far, a massive hit. The trade publication Pollstar reported in May that over a million tickets have been sold worldwide for the 85 dates the singer will perform before the before the tour concludes in mid-December. Pollstar also lists most of the concert dates on tour’s initial leg, including a July 9 return to Rupp Arena (the leg’s final performance), as sellouts. As of this writing, though, Ticketmaster.com shows a limited number seats available but a good number of tickets for sale via verified resale.

Still, 2024 has been turbulent ride offstage for the pop star. The Sag Harbor DUI seems to be a tipping point for some critics fed up with decades of unpunished transgressions, from former girlfriend Britney Spears’ accusations of cheating (and worse) during their past relationship in her 2023 memoir “The Woman in Me” to the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” Timberlake literally let rip upon Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

Novelist Jennifer Weiner was among those voicing frustrations in a New York Times column titled “The Tiresome Mr. Timberlake” published four days after the Sag Harbor DUI arrest.

“Canceled white guys rarely stay canceled,” she wrote. “It seems that the best we can hope for is a chance to briefly hold them responsible for their actions. Meanwhile, the cultural tides that prompted people to reconsider Mr. Timberlake’s actions are shifting back — if they ever really shifted at all.”

Justin Timberlake: Forget Tomorrow World Tour

When: 7:30 p.m. July 9

Where: Rupp Arena

Tickets: $78.50-$598.50 through ticketmaster.com.