Pop

Back in the day, promo tours for *NSYNC might have found the boy band visiting MTV’s TRL for some light grilling, or stopping by radio stations and network morning shows for a performance and chat. But this is 2023, so of course the guys — Justin Timberlake, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone — had to make the now-obligatory stop at the YouTube series Hot Ones, where the questions were easy, but the damage was real.

With 60 wings arrayed before them — and Timberlake and Fatone going rogue with no milk or water to soothe their aching mouths — the guys tried to answer some softballs from host Sean Evans while keeping their cool. Spoiler: it was not pretty.

For example, when Evans asked about the difference to approaching a song in 2023 versus 25 years ago, Timberlake said their plan for the reunion track “Better Place” from his Trolls Band Together threequel was “to try to capture both. For our fans that have been with us for so long, to give them something that felt not necessarily nostalgic, but familiar.”

Easy enough.

Kirkpatrick then dove into the mechanics of boy bands, saying, for instance, that a “put together” group like One Direction had “five guys that are amazing singers and great soloists,” which meant each had to fight for where their spot would be. “We kinda knew we sucked at singing certain things,” he added as an insulted Fatone said “speak for yourself!”

“So we just fell into our spots and we knew our place,” Kirkpatrick added, as the rest of the group broke out into a familial, easy laughter that hinted at their deep bond.

As the scoville heat levels began to rise and the five started feeling the burn, they had a good laugh about their technical difficulties back in the day, including Fatone getting his legs smashed in a “toaster” bit that was supposed to pop him up on to the stage, but instead almost folded him in half.

They kept it chill as they recalled hearing their song on the radio for the first time, girls breaking into JT’s hotel room and hiding in the closet and confirming rumors that three of them were cast as Jedi warriors (and later cut out) in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Timberlake and Bass, however, were “so butt hurt” that they weren’t asked.

Timberlake also confirmed that their Swedish producers — including Max Martin — insisted he pronounce “me” like “may” on “It’s Gonna Be Me,” which he said somehow made the song sound better and, of course, made for killer memes decades later.

By the time the scoville’s reached 135,000 the f-bombs started dropping and, well, they then came fast and furious as Timberlake — who had appeared on the show before, so should have known better — began to regret that no water thing as the guys tried to focus on their nuttiest looks from days gone by.

“Why is this a thing?!” JT wondered as Chasez asked what the “swearing quota” was for the show; for the record, chef Gordon Ramsay holds the high mark with more than 130, though they tried their best to beat the Hell’s Kitchen star at his f-bomb game. Timberlake and Fatone looked like they were dunked in sweat as Bass easily ticked off the band’s top five songs.

Watch the full *NSYNC Hot Ones episode below.

Lorde has always kept it 100 with her fans, and in a brutally honest letter posted to her Tumblr on Wednesday (Sept. 20), she opened up about what she said has been a very challenging year. The long note delves into the physical and emotional pain the 26-year-old singer said she’s endured recently, including that she’s is “living with heartbreak again.”

Though Lorde didn’t go into specifics about the cause of the heartbreak, she explained, “It’s different but the same. I ache all the time, I forget why and then remember. I’m not trying to hide from the pain, I understand now that pain isn’t something to hide from, that there’s actually great beauty in moving with it. But sometimes I’m sick of being with myself. I eat chocolate to try and manipulate the endorphins, bring back the sweet happiness of Easter morning. I sit in the time machine and wait for it to move, but it hasn’t been invented yet.”

Lorde said she’s been in London since May, where “things feel clear,” despite her describing not seeing her friends and mostly spending her time swimming, working, taking the train, walking and eating meals in her kitchen, alone with her thoughts. “I go to bed thinking about what I’m making. I’m starting to miss my friends and family, like a vitamin I’m deficient in. Soon I’ll be going back to New York, and then home,” said the New Zealand-bred star.

She shared that her pain is also physical, detailing that her body is “really inflamed,” and that she thinks it is “trying to tell me something and I’m trying to support it but nothing seems to help and I get frustrated. My gut isn’t working properly, my skin is worse than ever, I’ve gotten sick half a dozen times. I realised earlier this year that listening to my body is hard for me, it’s something I never really learned how to do. I’ve been trying to teach myself that this year, but it’s been hard actually, pretty confronting, has made me fully aware of all the times I ignored it or didn’t give it what it needed, shamed it for a fight or flight response, took a handful of pills and pushed through.”

Lorde said that she had “grand plans” to attend next week’s Paris Fashion Week festivities, but pulled out because, “I promised myself I’d never be one of the people in the light smiling if it wasn’t real.” The note revealed that earlier this year the singer “ate two handfuls of mushrooms” that she said gave her a lot of information “about what my body had been through in our time so far, what it needed, where God was and where God wasn’t; I felt in my bones how destabilising it is to leave home and start a new life the way I did. I also saw that my body is completely magnificent, and that hating it is as futile as hating a tree; that I truly, truly love doing my job, and that my life is like a beautiful tapestry, and every inch of it is precious and has meaning.”

And though she said she enjoyed her recent run of European tour dates — and the cool way fans seemed to notice how she had changed up the shows’ setlists and arrangements — Lorde also admitted that doing the things she loves is sometimes painful.

“It might seem funny or be easy to forget, but I make records because I need to,” she said. “The songs are spells; a spell to let go of something, a spell to unlock a door. Every time I put something into words just as I see it, set it to the right music, a knot comes loose in me. But it hurts too, confronting the knots. I’ve made enough records to know that this feeling of my skin coming off is part of it. I know I’m gonna look back on this year with fondness and a bit of awe, knowing it was the year that locked everything into place, the year that transitioned me from my childhood working decade to the one that comes next — one that even through all this, I’m so excited for. It’s just hard when you’re in it.”

Lorde teased two new songs during a headlining gig at the Boardmasters Festival in the U.K. last month, which fans have suggested are titled “Silver Moon” and “Invisible Ink,” signaling the first fresh tracks since her third studio album, 2021’s Solar Power.

Check out Lorde’s note below, including some luminous pictures from the European shows.