When Justin Timberlake exited NSYNC in 2002, his fellow band member Joey Fatone claimed there were no hard feelings. However, there was one moment that Fatone wasn’t happy about involving the singer embarking on his solo career. He opened up about the experience in the Boy Band Confidential docuseries airing on Investigation Discovery.
According to E! News, Fatone said the moment that upset him was “when Justin [performed at] the MTV Awards—and he performed for the first time—and we introduced him.” The singer admitted that he thought, “This is some bullsh*t.”
However, he was more upset with management than with Timberlake. “You are basically just pushing us aside a little bit to do this,” he said. “But yet, you still want us around to introduce him.”
Although he didn’t mind introducing Timberlake, he wasn’t happy with the way the situation was handled. “It is totally fine. But talk to us. Have a conversation. Say, ‘Hey, we’re promoting Justin. He has an album out. We’re not here for NSYNC right now.’ If you would have had that conversation, it would have been a lot easier for me personally.”
“That was the weird thing about it,” he added. “Nobody really had a conversation, per se. There was never a button, there was never a goodbye. There was never anything.”
Fatone went on to detail another experience that rubbed him the wrong way after Timberlake left the group to go solo. “Then, we did a red carpet on TV, and before that we’re like, ‘All five of us are going? Yes, all five of us are going on.’ Nope, It was almost like the record company was pushing us away and making sure Justin was getting his due.”
The Boy Band Confidential docuseries airs on April 13 and 14. According to IMDb, it will follow “the dark side of the 1990s boy band boom, revealing how the industry transformed young performers into commodities while exposing untold stories of abuse, addiction, and financial manipulation.”
