Justin Timberlake Defends Britney’s Dancing, Gushes Over Gaga In ‘Playboy’

Becky Bain | June 14, 2011 12:42 pm

Justin Timberlake recently sat down with Playboy to promote two new movies — Bad Teacher, in which he plays opposite his ex-girlfriend Cameron Diaz, and Friends With Benefits, which required him to roll around in the buff with Mila Kunis. (What a hard life!) Of course, the conversation turned from his flicks to topics like drugs, sex and his former flames — but unlike John Mayer talking to the adult mag, JT was a total gent when discussing the ladies in his life. Catch his 11 extremely classy, and very revealing, quotes — none which refer to Britney Spears as “sexual napalm” — below.

11 CLASSY QUOTES FROM JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE’S PLAYBOY INTERVIEW

On performing with his ex Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher: “It sounds complicated to everybody else, but it wasn’t to us. Honestly, the only thing I was worried about before I said yes to that movie was being asked that question. I knew at some point we’d have to promote the film and people would say, “Oh my God, that’s so weird that you two dated for four years.” I don’t know what else to say except the truth, which is that we’re friends. We don’t talk to each other all the time, but we respect each other, and on some level we’ll always love each other—but in our new capacity as friends.”

On getting fit for his nude scenes in Friends With Benefits: “I did go on a diet for that movie, which mostly came down to not drinking as much beer. And you know, beer is good, so that was hard. I’m pretty thin anyway, but I didn’t want to look like a meathead. I was like, I’m about to be 30, and I’m going to be naked on camera. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to train pretty hard.”

On Saturday Night Live: “My favorite thing in the world was to make people sing—until I made people laugh. Then that became my favorite thing in the world. SNL gave me a place to do that, and all my experiences there have been tremendous.”

On writing (and not writing) new music: “I’m always writing music, always thinking about ideas for songs… [but] I don’t have a single song ready to go. People keep asking me when a new song or album is coming out, and I don’t know what to say. Music is not my focus right now. It may be someday. It could happen next month or next year, but right now it’s not where it’s at for me.”

On the insane amount of fan girls during his N Sync days: “I remember looking down once—we were playing Madison Square Garden for an HBO special—and this girl put her arm out. She had a mural of me tattooed along her whole arm. I just remember looking at it and thinking, Holy shit, that’s never going to come off.”

On dealing with race: “When I was a kid people would ask me what I hated most, and I would always say racism. It always comes up, and it always came up regarding my style of performing. I wasn’t cool with the white kids because they thought I wanted to be black. And I wasn’t cool with the black kids because they thought I wanted to be black. So I was looked at as a traitor and an intruder or an imposter. I had to find solace in just being me.”

On his personal fashion mistakes:“God, I feel I’ve gone to therapy just to erase some of them. The cornrows I wore with ’N Sync. That was pretty bad. Britney and I wore matching denim outfits [to the 2001 American Music Awards]. Yeah, another bad choice. I’d probably pay good money to get some of those pictures off the internet.”

On his co-stars on The Mickey Mouse Club: “What’s funny is I didn’t know at the time that the people around me would go on to so many great things. The exception was Christina Aguilera. She was the prodigy. She could sing better than the adults who had huge deals at the time. We always felt she was going to become Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey or whoever she wanted to be.”

On smoking pot: “The only thing pot does for me is it gets me to stop thinking. Sometimes I have a brain that needs to be turned off. Some people are just better high.”

On Lady Gaga: “She’s a force. Beyond awesome. I mean, she’s legitimately talented. I’d love to see her come out with another record a couple of years from now that’s completely different, maybe something Tori Amos could do. If I were Lady Gaga, I’d do whatever I wanted, which it looks like she’s doing. She’s just plain old good.”

On Britney, particularly the video comparing her dancing skills from the past with the present: “The internet is a cruel place. What a fucked-up thing to do… I don’t have too much to say about her situation. I can’t remember the last conversation I had with her. But this thing that happens online bothers me—these anonymous commenters. People think they can say anything and it doesn’t matter to people. I’d love to see the people who comment about Britney online say those things to her face, because they couldn’t. Also, in Britney’s defense, if you pulled up a video I did from 2003, I couldn’t do the shit I did then either.”

Read the entire interview over at Playboy.