Justin Timberlake went home to Memphis on Friday, January 19, for a free concert and debuted a brand-new single.
During the Orpheum Theater show, Timberlake, 42, played “Selfish” live for the first time.
“If you saw what I saw / they would fall the way I fell,” he sang, per social media footage from the Tennessee crowd. “They don’t know who you are / Baby, I would never tell /If they know what I know / They would never let you go / So, guess what? I ain’t ever letting you go.”
He continued, “‘Cause your lips were made for mine / and my heart would go flatline / if it wasn’t beatin’ for you all the time. / So if I get jealous, I can’t help it/ I want every bit of you, I guess I’m selfish / It’s bad for my mental, but I can’t fight it.”
After the show ended, Timberlake uploaded a brief snippet of the track onto his YouTube, Instagram and TikTok pages. Moments later, he seemingly revealed his next studio album was on the way and uploaded a trailer titled “Everything I Thought I Was,” narrated by Benicio Del Toro.
Justin Timberlake Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for MTV
The video ended with a title card that read, “Justin Timberlake Presents: Everything I Thought It Was.” The LP will be his sixth solo album after Justified, FutureSex/LoveSounds, The 20/20 Experience, The 20/20 Experience — 2 of 2 and Man of the Woods.
While Timberlake’s last album dropped in 2018, his most recent musical release was a reunion with former ‘NSync bandmates JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone. The former boy band dropped their single “Better Together” in September 2023 to accompany Timberlake’s animated movie Trolls Band Together.
“It was a very natural thing. The last 23 years, we’ve all kind of discussed maybe doing something here, maybe doing something there,” Bass, 44, exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2023 of ‘NSync’s surprise reunion. “We did Coachella and we did the VMAs 10 years ago, so it just made sense at that time.”
Fatone, 46, added to Us at the time that the single — fresh off their 2023 VMAs appearance — was “100 percent” a love letter to fans.
“It was just one of those things, like, ‘Wow, OK, we’re doing this.’ So we are just very happy to see what happens,” Fatone gushed. “I mean, again, it’s been 25 years since we really put something or anything out there. So just to be able to be in the studio together [and] have these vibes, it’s really cool.”
One day before dropping “Selfish,” Timberlake revealed that he will return to the Saturday Night Live stage for the first time in 10 years as the Saturday, January 27, episode’s musical guest. Dakota Johnson, with whom he previously costarred in The Social Network, will host.
