Justin Timberlake tells fans ‘it’s been a tough week’ after drink driving charge

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 singer was arrested in Sag Harbor, a wealthy village in the Hamptons in New York state, on Tuesday after allegedly failing to halt at a stop sign and failing to stay in the right lane.

In videos widely circulated on social media, Timberlake tells fans at a gig in Chicago on Friday night about the past week.

“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,” he said.

Timberlake’s lawyer said he was looking forward to “vigorously defending” the singer in a statement shared with the PA Media news agency on Wednesday.

The musician, who first found fame as a member of the boyband ’NSync, was pulled over on 18 June at 12.37am 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 the charging 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 papers added.

Timberlake was arrested and held overnight until he was arraigned at Sag Harbor village justice court on Tuesday morning and released.

His next court date was scheduled for 26 July, 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.

He will then travel to Boston, Baltimore and Cleveland as part of the Forget Tomorrow World tour.

The European leg, due to begin in Krakow, Poland, on 26 July, includes performances in the UK cities of 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.