Justin Timberlake is bringing SexyBack … to Saturday Night Live.
The NBC series’ official Instagram account announced on Friday, January 19, that Timberlake, 42, will be the musical guest on Saturday, January 27, marking his first SNL gig in almost 10 years.
Dakota Johnson will serve as the episode’s host. She and Timberlake previously shared the screen in 2010’s The Social Network. Johnson, 34, played a Stanford French major surprised to learn she’d spent the night with Napster founder Sean Parker (Timberlake).
Although it’s been a while, Timberlake is no stranger to the SNL stage. He first performed on the show in 2000 alongside his ‘NSync bandmates before going on to appear solo as both the host and the musical guest in 2003, 2006 and 2013. He also hosted in 2009 with musical guest Ciara and again in 2011 with musical guest Lady Gaga before appearing solely as the musical guest during a 2013 episode hosted by Jimmy Fallon.
Timberlake has made a number of other cameos on SNL over the years, with his dancing mascot character and his “D—k in a Box” collaboration with The Lonely Island being some of his most memorable contributions to the show.
His latest appearance comes days after Timberlake teased his long-awaited next album. On Tuesday, January 16, he replied to a TikTok user asking “New Music?????” with a video of himself wordlessly counting to six on his fingers before raising his eyebrows.
One day later, the singer shared a carousel of photos via his recently-wiped Instagram page, including a snap of himself dressed in different outfits and an upside-down missing person poster that asked “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?”
Timberlake captioned the post, “EITIW,” leading to theories that the letters symbolized the name of a forthcoming single or album.
Billboard pointed out that Reddit users had discovered a trademark application filed by “a mysterious LLC” early last year for the phrase “Everything I Thought It Was,” along with “Everything I Thought It Was … A Sonic Film.”
Prior to his SNL return, Timberlake is set to perform at the Orpheum Theatre in his hometown Memphis on Friday. He shared the news via Instagram earlier this month.
“Going home ➡️ MEMPHIS 1/19,” he wrote.
Before Timberlake and Johnson take Studio 8H by storm, Jacob Elordi and Reneé Rapp will kick off the first SNL episode of 2024 as host and musical guest, respectively, on Saturday, January 20.
In a promo for the episode shared via SNL’s Instagram page on Thursday, January 18, cast member Bowen Yang quipped that Rapp, 24, was “so right” about Elordi, 26, being “so babygirl.”
Elordi acted confused and questioned what Rapp is if he’s a babygirl.
“Oh, I’m mother,” the Mean Girls star replied.
Saturday Night Live airs on NBC Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
