Justin Timberlake addressed his Tuesday morning DWI arrest for the first time during his concert in Chicago Friday evening.
“It’s been a tough week,” Timberlake told the United Center crowd. “I know I’m hard to love sometimes but you keep loving me right back.”
Timberlake made the remarks during a message to his fans, where he stressed they’ve both been through the “ups-and-downs and lefts-and-rights.”
Page Six was told that during his arrest, Timberlake, 43, voiced his concern that the traffic stop would “ruin the tour.” He is currently on his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, which kicked off in Vancouver, British Columbia on April 29 and has stops in more than 50 cities.
However, on Thursday, a music industry insider informed Page Six the legal incident would not affect the ongoing tour and that he would “continue promotion for his album [‘Everything I Thought It Was’] as planned, which, of course, includes his tour dates.”
His Chicago tour stops, which include Friday and Saturday nights, mark his first concerts following his short stint in prison.
The 10-time Grammy winner was arrested in Sag Harbor, NY, shortly after midnight Tuesday while traveling back to his hotel from a dinner with his friends at the American Hotel, per Page Six’s sources.
An officer pulled him over after he blatantly blew through a stop sign and swerved across the road.
According to the criminal complaint, he refused a breathalyzer test at the scene and “performed poorly” on his field sobriety tests.
Furthermore, he had “bloodshot and glassy” eyes, a “strong odor” of alcohol in his breath and “slowed speech” — all tell-tale signs of intoxication.
One of Page Six’s eyewitnesses noted that Timberlake’s friends “were telling the police, ‘Let him go, let him go,’” during the arrest. The pleas allegedly did not work because the arresting officer “was so young that he didn’t even know” Timberlake was a world-famous pop star.
He was ultimately hit with one count of driving while intoxicated as well as two traffic violations for failing to obey a stop sign and failure to stay in a proper lane of travel.
While an insider told Page Six the “Cry Me a River” singer had stopped drinking ahead of his tour, another told us it’s “no secret” he has a drinking problem.
He even admitted 18 years ago that he partook in heavy alcohol consumption and had tried “way too many drugs.”
“I get completely plastered, I’ve done my fair share of drugs and I’ve been caught places with my pants down,” he added.
That, of course, was before he married his wife, Jessica Biel, with whom he shares two sons: Silas, 9, and Phineas, 3.
Biel, 42, is reportedly “extremely upset” over her husband’s antics.
