A day after wrapping up a two-year tour, Justin Timberlake took to Instagram on Thursday and shared personal news: He wrote that he had been “battling some health issues” and that he had been given a diagnosis of Lyme disease.
Timberlake, 44, said in the post that he had felt unwell during his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, which was promoting his sixth solo album, “Everything I Thought It Was.”
“When I first got the diagnosis I was shocked for sure,” he wrote in the post. “But, at least I could understand why I would be onstage and in a massive amount of nerve pain or, just feeling crazy fatigue or sickness.”
He said that it had made him question whether to continue performing.
“I was faced with a personal decision. Stop touring?” he wrote. “I decided the joy that performing brings me far outweighs the fleeting stress my body was feeling.”
The tour opened in April 2024 in Vancouver, Canada, and continued with over 70 shows across North America and Europe through the summer and fall. This year, he continued with a second leg, JT LIVE 25, which included several festival dates, Lollapalooza in Brazil among them, before ending on July 31, in Istanbul.
Lyme disease typically develops after a bite from an infected tick. Many people develop a telltale red rash within the first month that forms a bull’s-eye around the tick bite, as well as flulike symptoms like fever, chills, fatigue and aches. For those who take antibiotics during the early stages of Lyme disease, most will fully recover within a few weeks. But even with antibiotics, some people experience enduring fatigue, body aches and difficulty concentrating.
Because its symptoms can resemble a spate of other illnesses, Lyme disease can often go undiagnosed, or be misclassified as another sickness.
If untreated, Lyme disease can lead to a cascade of complications, including fatigue, severe headaches and neck stiffness, arthritis, rashes and heart palpitations. Patients can also experience dizzy spells, shortness of breath and nerve pain. In rare cases, Lyme can lead to meningitis.
Doctors are still trying to understand some of those symptoms, and why they can vary so widely from patient to patient, said Dr. Christopher Bazzoli, an emergency medicine doctor at Cleveland Clinic. When people are sick with Lyme for a prolonged period of time, “that’s where we start to get a lot more of the nebulous symptoms that are really hard to understand and treat,” he said.
Timberlake, who wrote that he is a “pretty private person,” said that he was sharing the news of his diagnosis in an effort to “be more transparent about my struggles so that they aren’t misinterpreted.”
Representatives for Timberlake did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The tour, his first since 2019, came with a few hiccups. Last year, shortly before he was scheduled to play at Madison Square Garden, Timberlake was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
There were some cancellations and postponements as well. Timberlake postponed a show in New Jersey by a week, citing an injury. A few weeks later, he canceled a show in Oklahoma City, Okla., after injuring his back.
Timberlake also canceled a performance in Columbus, Ohio, in February less than an hour before it began, citing illness.
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
Dani Blum is a health reporter for The Times.
The post Justin Timberlake Reveals Lyme Disease Diagnosis as Tour Ends appeared first on New York Times.
