Justin Timberlake says Michael Jackson called him about an NSYNC song, but he thought it was a prank and cursed him out

Justin Timberlake has told the story of Michael Jackson and the NSYNC song “Gone” before, but he has now added an awkward detail. Timberlake said that when Jackson called him about the song, he assumed it was a prank and cursed out the King of Pop before realizing who was on the line, according to TMZ.

Timberlake shared the story on the latest episode of Complex’s ReRank series. He explained that he originally wrote “Gone” with Jackson in mind, but Jackson passed on it, so NSYNC recorded the song instead. “Gone” ended up on the group’s 2001 album Celebrity, where Timberlake sang the lead.

After NSYNC released the song, Timberlake said his phone rang from a number he did not recognize. The caller greeted him with “Hi, Apple Head,” and Timberlake said he swore at the caller, as he was sure someone was messing with him. It only dawned on him afterward that it was actually Jackson, and he recalled thinking, “I just cursed Michael Jackson out.”

Timberlake says Jackson wanted to turn “Gone” into a duet

Jackson was not calling to complain about the language. According to Timberlake, Jackson loved “Gone” and wanted to re-record it as a duet with him, even though NSYNC had already put it out. Timberlake said he suggested bringing in the whole group instead, but Jackson made it clear he only wanted the two of them on the track.

Timberlake said he turned Jackson down, as he could not leave his bandmates out of a song they had already recorded together. He told Jackson he hoped they could work together at some point in the future. The duet version of “Gone” never happened, and NSYNC went on hiatus the following year as Timberlake launched his solo career.

The broader story first came out in 2014, when Timberlake told it during an interview for Oprah’s Master Class on OWN. At the time, he said he was “literally punching” himself in the face while turning Jackson down. However, that version did not include the prank call mix-up, which is the new detail Timberlake added in the ReRank clip, more than a decade after he first described the call.

Jackson’s interest in the song lines up with other stories from that era. Pharrell Williams said in 2020 that all but one of the songs on Timberlake’s 2002 debut album, Justified, were originally made for Jackson, who passed on them. Jackson also made a surprise appearance during NSYNC’s performance of “Pop” at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.

The clip arrives during a busy stretch of Jackson headlines, including Paris Jackson’s $600 million trust petition against her father’s estate. However, Timberlake’s story centers on a much lighter moment, as it looks back at a phone call from more than two decades ago rather than the fight over Jackson’s money.

Complex Music’s post sharing the clip has drawn hundreds of thousands of views, and not every reply was warm. One Jackson fan account wrote that Timberlake was not there for Janet Jackson when she needed support and said it wished he would not mention Michael at all. Complex Music also pointed followers to the full ReRank episode, which it posted on YouTube.

Timberlake did eventually get his duet with Jackson, though not on “Gone.” In 2014, a posthumous version of Jackson’s “Love Never Felt So Good” was released featuring Timberlake, more than a decade after that phone call.