Justin Timberlake is begging fans to forgive his beatboxing era.
The “SexyBack” singer, 45, dropped into the Instagram comments of creator Hannah Young after she posted a video roasting his old habit of dropping “boots and cats” breakdowns into songs and live shows. Young, who posts as @uhhuhhannah, uploaded the clip Sunday and walked through what she saw as a bizarre, unquestioned chapter of pop history.
“We don’t talk about Justin Timberlake beatboxing enough,” Young said in the video. “Because there was a moment in time where that man would be in the middle of a song and just … boots and cats, boots and cats. And we were like, ‘Yes. There he is.'”
She kept going, noting that nobody in Timberlake’s circle seemed to intervene. “Nobody questioned it. Nobody said, ‘Justin, you know, we have drums. This is a professional recording studio. There are instruments available to you,'” she continued. “But no, Justin Timberlake wanted to make space noises with his mouth. You couldn’t stop him … awards shows, live performances.”
Young painted a picture of a man who could not be trusted with a microphone without the risk of mouth percussion. “You gave that man a microphone, and there was always a chance he was about to go, ‘Boots and cats, boots and cats,'” she added. “And we liked it. That’s what I need us to sit with.”
She ended by admitting the hold it once had on audiences. “We were watching that man make drum noises with his mouth like, ‘Oh my God, what can’t he do?’ I just, I think about it sometimes.”
Timberlake showed up in the comments with a mea culpa that still left wiggle room. “I often look back on that time as well. I still haven’t come up with any answers,” he wrote. “I don’t know how to apologize enough for whatever those ambitions were. Too many boots. Too many cats. I hope you can forgive me.”
Then he delivered the kicker. “Also, I can’t promise I won’t do it again. God help us all,” he concluded.
This was not the first time Timberlake has acknowledged the bit. During a 2023 “Hot Ones” appearance alongside his *NSYNC bandmates Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Joey Fatone, host Sean Evans brought up the “beatbox battle interlude” from the group’s stadium tour shows. “File that under, you know, slightly regrettable,” Timberlake said at the time. Bass, for his part, dubbed the moment “iconic.”
The exchange lands during a stretch where Timberlake has been unusually present in viral moments. In April, he shared a throwback Instagram video of himself chatting with a young Justin Bieber after Bieber shouted him out during his Coachella headlining set. That same post included a clip of Bieber covering Timberlake’s 2002 hit “Cry Me a River,” a throwback to a YouTube performance Bieber recorded before he was famous. “I grew up listening to Justin Timberlake and so many other beautiful talents, but I remember this like it was yesterday,” Bieber said onstage.
Timberlake’s current *NSYNC reunion tour has put his past front and center, with old stage bits resurfacing and fans revisiting every era of his decades-long career.
The beatboxing mea culpa adds another layer to a year where Timberlake has alternated between nostalgia and self-aware damage control.
Timberlake is scheduled to continue the *NSYNC reunion tour with upcoming stops across North America.
