American pop star Justin Timberlake admitted “it’s been a tough week” at his first concert since he was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated.
The 43-year-old Cry Me A River singer was arrested in Sag Harbor, a wealthy village in the Hamptons in New York state, on Tuesday after allegedly failing to pause at a stop sign and failing to stay in the right lane.
In videos widely circulated on social media, Timberlake speaks about the past week while addressing fans at a gig in Chicago on Friday night.
He said: “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.”
Timberlake’s lawyer said he was looking forward to “vigorously defending” the singer in a statement shared with the PA news agency on Wednesday.
A fan who attended the concert said some concertgoers wore T-shirts with Timberlake’s mugshot on it.
Vilmarie Rosario, who is 37 and a legal project manager from Chicago, Illinois, told the PA news agency: “Overall, the concert venue was packed and had a great, fun energy to it.
“There was not an empty seat in the entire venue.
“When Justin made his passing remarks on the incident of this week, (he really just mentioned that he’s had a rough week and I could sense genuine emotion from him) he received nothing but support and love and cheers from the audience.
“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 Timberlake 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.
Timberlake was placed under arrest and held overnight until he was arraigned at Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Tuesday morning and then released.
His next court date is scheduled for July 26, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said.
Timberlake will perform another show in Chicago on Saturday before two shows at Madison Square Garden in New York.
His The Forget Tomorrow World Tour will also see him travel to US cities including Boston, Baltimore and Cleveland.
The European leg, which begins in Krakow, Poland, on July 26, includes performances in Birmingham and Manchester as well as two dates at The O2 in London this August.
The Grammy winner and actor, known for films including The Social Network (2010) and Friends With Benefits (2011), released his latest solo album, Everything I Thought It Was, in March.
