Justin Randall Timberlake (born January 31, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with sales of over 88 million records. Timberlake is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including ten Grammy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, three Brit Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, the Contemporary Icon Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. According to Billboard, he is the best performing male soloist in the history of the Mainstream Top 40.
Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, he appeared on TV shows as a child, before rising to prominence in the late 1990s as a lead vocalist for the boy band NSYNC. The group released 4 commercially successful studio albums and eventually became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, with 70 million records sold. Timberlake's debut solo album, Justified (2002), yielded his first solo hit singles, "Cry Me a River" and "Rock Your Body". His critically acclaimed second album, FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006), debuted atop the US Billboard 200 and spawned three consecutive Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles – "SexyBack" (featuring Timbaland), "My Love" (featuring T.I.) and "What Goes Around... Comes Around". Established as a solo artist worldwide, his first two albums both exceeded sales of 10 million copies and received 3× platinum certification by the RIAA. Concurrently, Timberlake collaborated with other artists on a string of successful songs, including The Lonely Island's viral hit "Dick in a Box" in 2006, his fourth US number-one single with Timbaland's "Give It to Me" in 2007, as well as Madonna's "4 Minutes", 50 Cent's "Ayo Technology" and T.I.'s "Dead and Gone" in the following years.
From 2008 through 2012, Timberlake paused his musical career to focus on his acting, holding starring roles in the films The Love Guru (2008), The Social Network (2010), Bad Teacher (2011), Friends with Benefits (2011), and In Time (2011). He resumed his recording career in 2013 with his third and fourth albums, The 20/20 Experience and The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2; both albums topped the Billboard 200 and spawned the Hot 100 top-ten singles "Suit & Tie" (featuring Jay-Z), "Mirrors", and "Not a Bad Thing"; the former album became the best-selling album of the year. Timberlake voiced the character Branch in the DreamWorks Animation's Trolls franchise (2016–2023); the soundtrack for the first film included his fifth US number-one single, "Can't Stop the Feeling!", which earned him an Academy Award nomination. His fifth studio album, Man of the Woods (2018), became his fourth number-one album in the US. Supported by two top ten singles, "Filthy" and "Say Something" (featuring Chris Stapleton), it concluded 2018 as the sixth best-selling album of the year.
Early life
Justin Randall Timberlake was born on January 31, 1981, in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Janet Lynn (Bomar) Harless and Charles Randall Timberlake, a Baptist church choir director. Timberlake has two half-brothers, Jonathan and Stephen, from Charles' second marriage to Lisa Perry. His half-sister Laura Katherine died shortly after birth in 1997, and is mentioned in his acknowledgments in the album NSYNC as "My Angel in Heaven".
His family circle includes several musicians; his grandfather introduced him to music from country music artists like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Performing as a child, Timberlake sang country and gospel music: at the age of 11, he appeared on the television show Star Search, performing country songs as "Justin Randall". By that time, he began listening to rhythm and blues musicians from the 1960s and 70s, such as Al Green, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and he had listening sessions with his father of studio albums by the Eagles and Bob Seger.
In 1993 and 1994, he was a Mouseketeer on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, where his castmates included future girlfriend and singer Britney Spears, future tourmate Christina Aguilera, future bandmate JC Chasez, and future movie actors Ryan Gosling and Keri Russell. Timberlake then recruited Chasez to be in an all-male singing group, put together by Chris Kirkpatrick and financed by boy band manager Lou Pearlman, that eventually became NSYNC.