The New King of Pop

At the Butcher Shop, a steakhouse in downtown Memphis, a banquet-size table is crowded with people who are all somehow associated with Justin Timberlake: his mother and stepfather, Lynn and Paul Harless (who co-manage his career), his best friend's girlfriend, his publicist, some family friends, business associates, me. We pass our time laughing and drinking wine and eating filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes, but we're really just waiting for Timberlake. It's early October, and he is on his way home to film a prime-time concert for NBC, scheduled to air the day after Thanksgiving. He won't arrive in Memphis until later tonight, when he flies in on a private plane from Detroit. Arrangements are made for a car to pick him up at the airport, but Timberlake calls more than once to see if his parents are willing to come get him. "He sounds cranky," says Lynn, more with affection than annoyance, after chatting with her son on her cell.

Timberlake's name doesn't come up again at the dinner table until Lynn notices my tattoos and starts telling me about getting her own ink backstage at one of her son's shows. Paul is reminded of how Timberlake persuaded them to let him pierce his ear when he was thirteen. All of his friends had done it, and Justin was begging to get his pierced, too. So Paul came up with a way to make him earn the privilege. "I told him, 'You have to write a song and sing it at a family gathering,'" he says, beaming with fatherly pride. Paul even drew up a little contract, to show his resolve. Timberlake went to his room and wrote "The Earring Song" -- a little ditty that stole its tune from Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy." He sang it for his parents on the beach during a Hawaiian vacation, and as soon as they got back to Memphis, he went to the mall and got his earring put in.

When I finally lay eyes on Timberlake the following afternoon, he is a moving target. He is shooting background material for the TV special, and for hours he zips from location to location -- Sun Studio, a Beale Street blues club, an old-school general store in the sticks, his parents' house -- in an iridescent-blue Jeep, trailed closely by a police escort. Really, it's just another busy day in what has been a relentlessly busy year for the twenty-two-year-old Timberlake. He has been hustling almost nonstop during the eleven months since his solo debut, Justified, was released; his only break was a two-week trip to Hawaii in September that he says was marred by the constant assault of paparazzi stalking him and his girlfriend, Cameron Diaz. But the work paid off: Justified has sold more than 3 million copies, surpassing even his own expectations. In October, his performance as host of Saturday Night Live, where he dressed in drag as Jessica Simpson, did a note-perfect impersonation of his pal Ashton Kutcher and donned an omelet costume to play a pitchman, was so unexpectedly funny that he's fielding offers for feature-film roles. He spent the summer touring Europe and the U.S. on a blockbuster double bill with Christina Aguilera. In August, he won three MTV Video Music Awards, and then won three more at the European version of the VMAs a few weeks ago.