Whether or not it increases the chances of Janet Jackson surprising us in Minneapolis during Super Bowl week, Justin Timberlake revealed in a new interview that he and his counterpart (victim?) in the 2004 "wardrobe malfunction" halftime show incident maintained a good relationship after it happened.
"I don't know that a lot of people know that," Timberlake told Zane Lowe for Beats One. "I don't think it's my job to do that, because you value the relationships that you do have with people."
"Naturally, that's something we talked about," he said of Jackson in the interview (a clip is posted below). "To be honest, it wasn't too much of a conversation. It's just one of those things where you go, like… "Yeah, what do you want me to say? We're not going to do that again."
He also seemed to ever-so-vaguely take the blame for the controversy in the Lowe interview: "I had my wires crossed, and it's just something that you have to look back on and go like, 'OK, well, you can't change what's happened, but you can move forward and learn from it.'"
The infamous stunt, wherein Timberlake revealed one of Jackson's breasts in front of a kinda-big TV audience, has been a topic of conversation again ever since Timberlake was confirmed in October as the the halftime show headliner for Super Bowl LII, taking place Feb. 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
For her part, Jackson has stayed mum as Timberlake's halftime show nears.
Not only will Timberlake be in town that week – he's also due at the American Express party at Prince's Paisley Park on Feb. 1 – so will Jackson's longtime cohorts Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who are heading up the free Super Bowl Live concert series on Nicollet Mall. The renowned producers brought Jackson to Minneapolis often to record some of her biggest hits in the late-'80s and '90s.