Justin Timberlake making big change to Super Bowl halftime show after backlash
Justin Timberlake, the human halftime controversy, had big plans to resurrect Prince in the late singer’s home state of Minnesota and in hologram form for the Super Bowl on Sunday.
But after a monumental backlash, Timberlake and his team relented and the Prince hologram was scrapped.
If you’re going to bring someone back as a hologram, you probably shouldn’t choose someone who — when he was alive — railed against that very practice in the strongest of terms.
In a 1998 interview with Guitar World magazine, Prince didn’t mince words about the thought of deceased artists reappearing via technology.
“That’s the most demonic thing imaginable,” Prince said. “Everything is as it is, and it should be. If I was meant to jam with Duke Ellington, we would have lived in the same age. That whole virtual reality thing … it really is demonic. And I am not a demon.
“Also, what they did with that Beatles song [‘Free As a Bird’], manipulating John Lennon’s voice to have him singing from across the grave … that’ll never happen to me. To prevent that kind of thing from happening is another reason why I want artistic control.”
Fortunately, Timberlake’s plan was nipped in the bud before it joined Janet Jackson, Left Shark and the All-Kids Super Bowl Halftime Show in the hallowed halls of the Museum of Stupid Ideas.
Timberlake has called Prince “the greatest all-around musician” in popular culture and will likely have heavy Prince influences in his halftime performance. A cover of “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Purple Rain” or “1999” is widely believed to be part of the unannounced set for the performance.
Prince himself had plenty of beef with Timberlake when he was still alive.
When Timberlake said he was “bringing sexy back” in 2007, Prince snarked back that “sexy never left!”
Timberlake gave back as good as he got though. When he accepted an award on Prince’s behalf at the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, he squatted down as a jab at Prince’s height, a hobbit-like 5-foot-3.
This does leave open the question of whether Timberlake is the right guy to parade in front of a Minnesota football audience when Minnesota’s favorite native musical son had so much friction with Timberlake during his life.
After all, Timberlake’s getting skewered on Twitter already:
Listen, Timberlake doing a posthumous duet with Michael Jackson is fully in keeping with MJ’s career and ethos. Prince specifically said he did not want to ever be a hologram. And he was skeptical about JT’s claims of “bringing sexy back” anyway. https://t.co/RhXRQcLgBr
— anildash.com (@anildash) February 3, 2018
But it wouldn’t be a Justin Timberlake halftime show without controversy, would it?
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