Footage of pop star Justin Timberlake’s drink-driving arrest is released

NEW YORK – The late-night traffic stop on Long Island was already in progress when things took a turn for the unusual.

The police officer had flagged down a 2025 BMW as it cruised through the mansion-lined village of Sag Harbor, New York.

He had explained his reasoning to the driver and requested the vehicle’s registration. And then, about 30 seconds into his questioning, the officer asked the driver what had brought him to town.

“I’m on a world tour,” he said, peering through the half-cracked window of his rented vehicle.

“A what?”

“A world tour.”

The driver trailed off as he searched for the words. Then he found them: “I’m Justin Timberlake.”

The encounter, captured by a police officer’s body camera, shows the moments leading up to Timberlake’s arrest on June 18, 2024, on a charge of drink driving.

The camera footage, which shows the 45-year-old American singer-actor undergoing a series of sobriety tests on the roadside and talking with two officers while in custody at a local police station, was released by Sag Harbor on March 20, weeks after Timberlake sued to stop the footage from being made public.

The release is the outcome of a settlement between Sag Harbor and Timberlake, who argued earlier in March in his suit that the availability of the footage would have humiliated him and constituted an unwarranted invasion of his privacy.

The settlement follows a lengthy legal back-and-forth that delayed the release of the footage, which has been the topic of intense tabloid interest since Timberlake’s arrest.

The encounter, which began when an officer pulled Timberlake over for driving through a stop sign and weaving out of a lane, went viral online after the police noted that the pop star had mumbled that the arrest would ruin his world tour.

Timberlake pleaded guilty in September 2024 to a low-level charge of driving while impaired, avoiding a more serious charge. He agreed to pay a US$500 (S$641) fine and serve 25 hours of community service at a charity of his choosing.

The footage released on March 20, some of which was published by TMZ and several other outlets, was redacted before its release and does not include a clip of Timberlake complaining about the tour. It was not immediately clear what exactly was removed from the recordings.

One 19-minute video, which begins with the traffic stop, depicts a glassy-eyed and slurring Timberlake alternating between disbelief, annoyance and occasional humour as he is arrested and taken to a police station.

In one part of the video, Timberlake stands on the road behind his car as an officer asks him to complete a series of sobriety tests. The singer can be seen struggling to maintain his balance as he attempts to walk in a straight line. “I’m sorry. I’m a little nervous,” he says to the two officers standing with him.

A few moments later, after another test, he adds: “By the way, these are, like, really hard tests.”

After Timberlake is handcuffed, a woman who was with him approaches the officers and appears shocked as they inform her of his arrest.

“Stop it. No way. Don’t say it,” she says. “You’re arresting Justin Timberlake right now? Stop it. Why?”

After Timberlake is seated in the patrol car, the woman asks the officers to let her speak with him.

“Can you guys please just do me a favour because you loved Bye Bye Bye or SexyBack?” she pleads, referring to two of Timberlake’s most famous songs.

In another snippet of video obtained by The Associated Press, Timberlake can be seen seated at a booth in the police station. “You boys treat me like I’m a criminal,” he says to the two officers in the room. He adds a little later that he had only “one martini” and was following his friends home.

Wrangle over footage’s release

The saga over the footage’s release has been ongoing since March 1 when the Sag Harbor Police Department notified Timberlake’s lawyer that it planned to release eight hours of body camera footage related to his arrest, according to court documents.

The release was in response to a public records request, the department said, and would include certain redactions to the footage, documents show.

Mr Brendan O’Reilly, digital editor of The Express News Group, a local newspaper publisher that had requested the footage, said his outlet first asked for it the day after Timberlake’s arrest, but that its release was repeatedly delayed by the singer’s lawyers and local officials.

According to court documents, Timberlake’s lawyers submitted a written statement opposing the release after being notified by the Police Department of its intentions on March 1, but the police refused his request.

The next day, Timberlake’s legal team filed an emergency order in Suffolk County State Supreme Court against Sag Harbor, its Police Department and its police chief seeking to block the footage’s dissemination. The videos, it argued, showed Timberlake in an “acutely vulnerable state” and releasing them would subject the singer to “public ridicule” and irreparably harm his reputation.

On March 5, the judge in the case, Joseph Farneti, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the release without a court order. But weeks later, on March 20, he lifted the order after Timberlake reviewed the footage and the parties reached an agreement.

The footage was published by several news outlets soon after. NYTIMES