It hasn't been a great week for the pop star.
Five years since he released his last album, and 11 years since he was last asked to perform the Halftime Show, this really should have been the 'SexyBack' comeback.
Instead, Man Of The Woods has been met with an almighty shrug - 57% on Metacritic makes it his worst reviewed album to date - and the lead-up to his performance at the Superbowl has suffered from one hurdle after another.
In the last few days, there were three primary rumours as to who Timberlake might bring out on stage with him: a mini-reunion with N*Sync, and/or Janet Jackson, and/or a hologram of Prince.
According to
TMZ, a source claims that there are no plans for another N*Sync reunion, since JT wheeled that out once before for the 2013 VMAs, so that's one down.
Next, Joe Jackson told
The New York Post that his clan were still very annoyed by what had happened the last time his daughter and Justin shared the stage - following the "wardrobe malfunction", Timberlake's career sky-rocketed, while Janet was essentially black-balled in the industry, and Timberlake never really looked back to share the "blame" and to assist in her time of need.
Additionally, Janet took to Twitter herself to clear up any of the speculation:
https://twitter.com/JanetJackson/status/959949582296911872
And finally, there was that rumour circulating that JT would be bringing out a Prince hologram to perform alongside during the performance, as a way of celebrating the game being played in the icon's hometown of Minneapolis.
Some fans were incredibly unhappy by this news - especially since Justin Timberlake and Prince famously did not get along back in the day - but this, too, looks to be scuppered.
Prince's brother Omarr Baker took to Twitter, using very few words to get his point across:
https://twitter.com/PRNFamily/status/959896317676937220
When asked by a fan what this meant, again Omarr used as few words as possible to be as clear as possible:
https://twitter.com/PRNFamily/status/959898024918044674
To be fair, neither Justin nor any of his team ever actually announced that any of these acts were ever part of what the eventual line-up is going to be.
Here's hoping whatever JT does pull out of the bag on the night is enough to blow everybody away.
