Justin Timberlake acted up and smoked weed in the days after the cancellation of his show The Mickey Mouse Club.
The singer made the revelation in his autobiographical book, Hindsight: And All the Things I Can’t See in Front of Me, which was released on Tuesday.
Before Timberlake was a world famous boy-band singer with NSYNC, he spent two seasons on the Disney Channel variety show The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, or MMC.
The show was the launching point to stardom for big name A-list celebrities like Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Keri Russell.
In his book, Timberlake writes that when the show was cancelled in 1994, he returned to Tennessee and started causing trouble.
‘I came home a lot more sophisticated and aware than I had been before the show, but I tried to downplay it because I just wanted to seem like everyone else,’ Timberlake writes in the book.
‘I became the class clown, disrupting class with my bits, not caring if the teachers were mad, only wanting to be accepted by the other kids.
Justin Timberlake acted up and smoked weed in the days after the cancellation of his show The Mickey Mouse Club. The singer made the revelation in his autobiographical book
The show was the launching point to stardom for Timberlake (top right corner), Ryan Gosling (bottom left), Britney Spears (bottom right), Christina Aguilera (standing above Spears), Nikki DeLoach (top center), Marque ‘Tate’ Lynche (above Gosling), and Tony Lucca (top left)
Before Timberlake was a world famous boy-band singer with NSYNC, he spent two seasons on the Disney Channel variety show The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, or MMC
‘I started getting in trouble. I smoked pot for the first time. I got myself a can of tobacco and almost got expelled for that.’
Timberlake’s new book, Hindsight: And All the Things I Can’t See in Front of Me, was released on Tuesday
It turns out that Timberlake wasn’t that well-behaved when the show was still running.
He writes that he and Gosling were up to some mischief.
‘We had employee cards that gave us access to the theme parks for free,’ Timberlake writes.
‘Ryan and I once stole a golf cart and drove it to the employee entrance for the Tower Of Terror.
‘We went on that ride 12 times in a row.’
Years after MMC went off the air, Spears and Timberlake began dating, though the relationship came to a tumultuous end.
Timberlake writes in the book that he was so emotional following his split from Spears that he unloaded his feelings by writing Cry Me a River in just two hours.
The former teen heartthrob’s hit song has long been rumored to be about the pop princess, following claims she cheated on him, leading to their breakup in 2002.
The 37-year-old writes of the breakup ballad: ‘I’ve been scorned. I’ve been pissed off. The feelings I had were so strong I had to write it.
‘I translated my feelings into a form where people could listen and hopefully relate to it. People heard me and they understood it because we’ve all been there.
‘I translated my feelings into a form where people could listen and hopefully relate to it.
‘People heard me and they understood it because we’ve all been there.’
Timberlake, 37, revealed he wrote his hit song Cry Me a River in just two hours, following his public breakup from pop princess Britney Spears in 2002. He writes: ‘I’ve been scorned. I’ve been pissed off. The feelings I had were so strong I had to write it’
The singer credits wife Jessica Biel, who he started dating in 2007 and married in 2012, for changing his life, writing: ‘She’s been a huge influence on my life’
Timberlake doesn’t mention Spears by name in his book but makes clear he is a changed man, crediting wife Jessica Biel and his son Silas for his transformation.
The musician grew up on the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee, writing that he began hearing harmonies in his head from the age of two.
He found himself on stage after his father started a bluegrass band, leading him to the TV show Star Search, then the All-New Mickey Mouse Club, to the hit group *NSYNC and to the top of the charts today.
Timberlake writes that actress Jessica Biel, 36, who he began dating in 2007 and married in 2012, ‘changed me. She changed my life’.