Millennials across the world started their day with a jolt after rumors of a potential NSYNC reunion at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards spread across the internet like wildfire. A reliable source told Billboard that the band would “be on stage together,” as a special, surprise part of the show. Given that the former boy band remains a major part of music history—with the influence of their massive hits traceable in groups like One Direction and BTS—an NSYNC performance would’ve fit perfectly the VMAs’ new tagline: Music’s most iconic night.
Unfortunately, the rumors that the group would be together onstage were all too literal. Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, JC Chasez, Lance Bass, and Chris Kirkpatrick appeared barely 10 minutes into Tuesday’s VMAs telecast, emerging from backstage to present the award for Best Pop Video. Though they might have all been dressed like members of Queer Eye’s modern Fab Five, there was hardly anything fabulous about this reunion. It was nothing more than a drab appearance, another knife to the heart for all of us holding out hope that the VMAs might someday generate the kind of hype they did throughout the aughts.
Judging by the demeanor of the band’s members, NSYNC’s arrival seemed like a glorified contractual requirement to drum up buzz for their new song “Take You to a Better Place.” The track will supposedly appear on the soundtrack for Trolls Band Together, also a fitting place for a reunion, given that Timberlake voices one of the hit franchise’s main characters. But wouldn’t a live performance at the VMAs have made just as much noise? This was, after all, the show where the band picked up seven Moon Person trophies over the band’s tenure, a fact that Fatone mentioned when he took the mic.
“We were here two decades ago when we won this award [for Best Pop Video] for ‘Bye, Bye, Bye,’” Fatone said. It was a particularly sour reminder, given that the band had already reunited a decade ago at the 2013 VMAs ceremony, performing “Bye, Bye, Bye” and “Girlfriend” during a medley of Timberlake’s hits ahead of the singer receiving the Video Vanguard award to celebrate his career.
Although the excitement quickly dissipated when the crowd realized the group wouldn’t be performing together, it didn’t stop Taylor Swift from fangirling out when she won the first award of the night. Swift’s “Anti-Hero” expectedly won Best Pop Video, after which Swift joined NSYNC on the stage to shower them in love. “I had your dolls,” Swift said, bringing back my own long-repressed memories of coveting my sister’s Justin Timberlake doll. “Like, are you doing something?” Swift asked. “What’s going to happen now? They’re going to do something and I need to know what it is.”
It’s rare that an artist as calculated as Swift is wrong about anything, but she was wrong about this. The ceremony continued without an NSYNC performance, despite Timbaland and Nelly Furtado—who both collaborated with Timberlake on their new single “Keep Going Up”—presenting an award later in the show. It would’ve been a perfect opportunity to perform the song from Trolls while promoting “Keep Going Up,” but nothing ever came of it. Is there a single person above the age of 30 producing this show? Surely some of the one-minute performances on the Extended Play Stage (presented by Doritos, naturally) could’ve been cut for Timberlake and company.
It wasn’t just you, me, and all of the people we went to high school with disappointed by NSYNC’s lack of performance. Even Megan Thee Stallion had something to say—though none of us can be sure what it was. Megan and Timberlake were spotted exchanging what looked like some heated words backstage, but there were no mics around to pick up what they said. Was Meg chastising Timberlake for not taking the opportunity to perform with the group that made him famous, thus uniting our broken world? Was she giving him a verbal whacking on behalf of Janet Jackson? Or maybe it was something else entirely.
We may never know the true answer (though PR teams are already putting their spin on it). Yet somehow, the 19-second clip was more exciting than NSYNC’s entire reunion. But perhaps the band is just reluctant to give too much away—those first-week ticket sales for Trolls Band Together are critical to box office numbers, after all!
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