Justin Timberlake admits ‘it’s been a tough week’ at first concert since arrest
American Pop sensation, Justin Timberlake, has acknowledged that "it's been a tough week" at his first gig since his arrest for alleged intoxicated driving.
The 43 year old Cry Me A River hitmaker, who recently stopped the show for assistance, was arrested in Sag Harbor, an affluent Hamptons village in New York, on Tuesday, after failing to halt at a stop sign and reportedly not staying in the correct lane.
Videos doing rounds on social media platforms present Timberlake talking about the past week during Friday night's show in Chicago. He confessed: "It's been a tough week... I know sometimes I'm hard to love but you keep on loving me and I love you right back."
In a statement shared with the PA news agency on Wednesday, Timberlake's legal representative professed eagerness towards "vigorously defending" the singer. At the concert, some fans were even seen sporting T-shirts with Timberlake's mugshot on them.
Enthralling the experience, Vilmarie Rosario, a 37 year old legal project manager from Chicago, told PA: "Overall, the concert venue was packed and had a great, fun energy to it." She added, "There was not an empty seat in the entire venue."
Vilmarie further spoke about how the crowd reacted when Justin, who is city-hopping across the US on his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, mentioned his rough week. She declared, "When Justin made his passing remarks on the incident of this week, he received nothing but support and love and cheers from the audience."
As long term fan, she added, "I've been a fan since I was 12 years old and I'm 37 now so I knew he would mention it without mentioning it directly. But I think he kept it short and simple and was grateful to the fans for sticking with him through the good and the bad. I appreciated that small gesture because he really didn't have to make a statement at all. He could've just kept going on as if nothing had happened."
She added: "Some fans in the crowd had shirts made of his mug shot, which was really funny and I hope he was able to see it, but everyone was just kind of making a joke of it, but they were all invested and happy to be at the show. Overall, he put on an amazing show, and he captivated the audience."
The musician, who first found fame as a member of boyband NSYNC, was pulled over on June 18 at 12.37am local time after police saw him "failing to stop at a duly posted stop sign and failing to maintain his lane of travel" while driving a 2025 BMW, a statement from Sag Harbor Village Police Department said.
An officer who stopped Justin described his eyes as being "bloodshot and glassy" and said a "strong odour of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath", according to a court document. "He was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot and he performed poorly on all standardised field sobriety tests," the court papers added.
He was placed under arrest and held overnight until he was arraigned at Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Tuesday morning and then released. The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office has confirmed that his next court appearance is set for July 26.
The European leg of his tour kicks off in Krakow, Poland, on July 26, and includes gigs in Birmingham and Manchester, as well as a double date at London's O2 this August.
