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. 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 Mr. Timberlake’s arrest on June 18, 2024, on a charge of drunken driving. The camera footage, which shows the singer 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 Friday, weeks after Mr. Timberlake sued to stop the footage from being made public.
The release is the outcome of a settlement between Sag Harbor and Mr. Timberlake, who argued earlier this month 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 Mr. Timberlake’s arrest.
The encounter, which began when an officer pulled Mr. Timberlake over for driving through a stop sign and weaving out of a lane, went viral online after the police noted that the singer had mumbled that the arrest would ruin his world tour. (Mr. Timberlake was scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden later that month and the arrest generated torrents of internet memes mocking his apparent comments.)
Mr. 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 $500 fine and serve 25 hours of community service at a charity of his choosing.
Lawyers for Mr. Timberlake, Edward Burke Jr. and Michael J. Del Piano, could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday. Nor could the Law Office of Vincent Toomey, which represented Sag Harbor in the proceedings.
The footage released on Friday, some of which was published by TMZ and several other outlets, was redacted before its release and does not include a clip of Mr. Timberlake complaining about the tour. It was not immediately clear on Saturday what exactly was removed from the recordings.
One 19-minute video, which begins with the traffic stop, depicts a glassy-eyed and slurring Mr. Timberlake alternating between disbelief, annoyance and occasional humor as he is arrested and taken to a police station.
In one part of the video, Mr. 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 Mr. 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,” the woman says. “You’re arresting Justin Timberlake right now? Stop it. Why?” After Mr. 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 favor because you loved ‘Bye Bye Bye’ or ‘SexyBack’?” she pleads, referring to two of Mr. Timberlake’s most famous songs.
In another snippet of video obtained by The Associated Press, Mr. 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.
Soon after, while reading a report with details about his arrest, Mr. Timberlake makes an apparent joke about his race. “White?!” he quips in feigned disbelief, presumably referring to a description of his race on the report, before chuckling and saying, “I’m just kidding.”
The saga over the footage’s release has been ongoing since March 1 when the Sag Harbor Police Department notified Mr. 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.
Brendan O’ Reilly, the 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 Mr. Timberlake’s arrest, but that its release was repeatedly delayed by the singer’s lawyers and local officials.
According to court documents, Mr. 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, Mr. 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, they argued, showed Mr. 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 Friday, he lifted the order after Mr. Timberlake reviewed the footage and the parties reached an agreement.
The footage was published by several news outlets soon after.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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