NSYNC reunites at 2023 VMAs with no songs attached
Boy band fans have been waiting patiently for the reunion of Justin Timberlake's alma mater, and it finally happened (kind of) when NSYNC hit the stage together at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards.
Fittingly, the group last performed together in public at the VMAs in 2013. But this time there was no music involved. The quintet reunited at Tuesday's live show, presenting the Best Pop award, which went to Taylor Swift.
Upon accepting the award from the group, a visibly shook Swift, who admitted to having dolls of the group growing up, said what we all were thinking, "Are you doing something? What's gonna happen now? They're gonna do something and I need to know what it is." The group played coy as the pop star continued, "You guys are pop personified so to receive this from your golden pop hands is really, it's too much."
MTV NSYNC at the 2023 VMAs
By the end of the evening, it was clear that Swift's question of "What's gonna happen now?" had no answer as the group didn't appear again, although Timberlake did have a memorable run-in with Megan Thee Stallion backstage.
While the Backstreet Boys — the Megadeth to NSYNC's Metallica — have embarked upon world tours in 2019-20 and over the last two years, NSYNC has been quiet for a decade. And, really, they'd gone silent for six years prior to that.
Their VMAs reunion is the culmination of more than a month of speculation about NSYNC reuniting in the near future. The rumors were kicked off by, of all things, Trolls.
Timberlake has been a staple of the Trolls movies, voicing Branch, one of the main characters, in Trolls, Trolls World Tour, and the upcoming Trolls Band Together, as well as some of its streaming releases.
Bob Berg/Getty
In the upcoming movie, Branch discovers a long-lost brother, who reveals they used to have a family band called BroZone. The trailer's deluge of boy band references had fans speculating that Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, and Chris Kirkpatrick—the other four members of NSYNC — would join Timberlake for a song in the movie.
The Trolls Band Together trailer shows BroZone covering the BeeGees (as NSYNC did at the 2003 Grammys) and the Backstreet Boys. They also drop hints in the trailer, like one brother shouting, "Branch, we're out of sync." There has also been a cascade of teases unleashed on social media by the members not named Justin.
So, when members of the group were spotted around New York in the lead-up to Tuesday's VMAs, speculation ratcheted up to 11. If there is anything more to the reunion beyond the VMAs and Trolls, that will make Timberlake a very busy man in 2023. NSYNC reunited, Reptile will be released on Netflix in October, Trolls Band Together hits theaters in November, and he's probably singing "Just Got Paid" to himself on repeat.
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