When Britney Spears released her memoir, The Woman In Me, this past October, one of the most talked about stories was her recollection of former boyfriend Justin Timberlake using a Black dialect while talking to Ginuwine during a one-time chance meeting on the street.
According to Spears, Timberlake and his NSYNC bandmates’ affinity for hip-hop and its culture was at times a bit much.
“They were White boys, but they loved hip-hop … NSYNC hung out with Black artists,” she writes. “Sometimes I thought they tried too hard to fit in.”
“One day, J and I were in New York, going to parts of town I’d never been to before,” she recalls. “Walking our way was a guy with a huge, blinged-out medallion,” Spears said of the artist walking with “two giant security guards.” She goes on to describe Timberlake being “all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo shiz, fo shiz! Ginuwiiiiine! What’s up, homie?’ ”
In a recent interview with Billboard after his elimination from “The Masked Singer,” Ginuwine was asked about Spears’ story, but the “Differences” singer says he couldn’t recollect the incident.
“Nah, I don’t remember that,” he said, laughing. “I would have probably looked at him very weird if he did that like she said. I just don’t remember that, but I remember him [Timberlake] being a cool dude and me kicking it down there in Florida with [*NSYNC’s] producer at one time.”
As for his still-fresh elimination from the popular music show, Ginuwine is being a good sport about it, though he feels that, under the right circumstances, he could have done better.
“I had fun, but the only reason I felt like I didn’t make it as far as I possibly could have was because of the mask,” he asserts. “I have asthma, so it dried me out and I couldn’t sing as well as I usually do. I was hoarse a whole lot. If you came to one of my concerts, you would definitely see a big difference, but I have no regrets. I’m glad I did it.”
