Pop star Justin Timberlake paid tribute to Prince and took selfies with fans during his Super Bowl half-time show, reports BBC.
The singer performed I Would Die 4 U during a hit-packed, 12-minute set in Minneapolis – Prince’s home town.Timberlake also ran into the crowd to dance and pose for photos, in an unfailingly energetic appearance. And he tacitly acknowledged his last Super Bowl performance in 2004, which ended with Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction”.
On that occasion, he ripped a panel off Jackson’s bodice, revealing her right breast as he sang the lyric “gonna have you naked by the end of this song”. When he reached that line on Sunday night, Timberlake stopped the music and cut to another song.
The gesture is unlikely to have impressed Jackson’s fans – who still resent the fact that her career was derailed by the incident, while Timberlake emerged relatively unscathed. Ahead of the show, the hashtag “Justice for Janet” trended on Twitter, in the hope Timberlake would invite her back – but Jackson shut down that speculation earlier on Sunday.
Still, Timberlake’s whip-crack choreography was so impressive it took a couple of minutes for the true horror of his outfit to truly sink in. He started the show backstage, performing his current single, Filthy, before dancing down an elevated walkway to the centre of the stadium.
Zipping through 12 songs in as many minutes, the 37-year-old showed off his enviable back catalogue – from the pop-funk of SexyBack to the robo-ballad Cry Me A River, into which he dropped elements of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir.
Suit and Tie was performed with a marching band, while Timberlake sat at a piano to play his Prince tribute.
“Minneapolis, Minnesota, this one’s for you,” he declared, singing a new arrangement of I Would Die 4 U over an archive recording of Prince’s vocals, as images of the late superstar were projected behind him.
As the song reached its climax, the area around the stadium was bathed in purple lights, forming the “love symbol” Prince adopted as his name in the 1990s. However, rumours that Timberlake would introduce a hologram of the pop icon turned out to be false. Prince’s estate confirmed on Twitter that there were “never any plans” for such a stunt – although, in a neat touch, Timberlake’s band included guitarist Mike Scott, a long-time player in Prince’s band.