‘The Simpsons’ Mocked Justin Timberlake Before Britney Made It Cool

Following salacious details revealed by pop star Britney Spears about her three-year relationship with fellow turn-of-the-millenium superstar Justin Timberlake, the internet is now abuzz with Britney stans taking turns dunking on the NSYNC singer. Well, like everything else that happens online, The Simpsons did it first.

When Timberlake and the rest of his chart-smashing boy band agreed to appear in the Simpsons Season 12 episode aptly titled “New Kids on the Blecch” in 2001, Timberlake, having already established himself as the runaway star whose solo career would dwarf those of his bandmates, was not available to record his voice lines with the rest of the group due to “personal matters.” When Timberlake finally decided to grace The Simpsons with his presence, he found the script to be a little… uncharacteristic. 

As Uproxx recently uncovered from the DVD commentary on the season, when Timberlake told the Simpsons writers that “he would never in a million years say ‘word,’” they made sure to arrange the final cut so that, in the span of about a minute and a half, Timberlake would say “word” roughly as many thousands of times times as he lied to Britney’s face.

Today, Twitter is chock-full of criticisms of the multi-hyphenate artist after Spears’ memoir, The Woman in Me, made Timberlake out to be a cheating, lying and manipulative partner who spouted awkward AAVE slang at every opportunity. One particular excerpt from the Michelle Williams-voiced audiobook has gotten significant attention for showing how hard Timberlake supposedly tried to look cool in front of Black people, which makes his apprehension towards the word “word” even funnier in retrospect.

Though the internet is quick to jump to conclusions, it's important to note that Timberlake hasn't yet responded to the accusations made against him by Spears. Let's not cast too much judgement before he can get a single “word” in.