Justin Timberlake couldn’t stop the spicy feeling during his interview with First We Feast’s Hot Ones on Thursday (April 9), but he did help stop the FCC from blocking his Saturday Night Live sketch “D— in a Box.”
During the half-hour chicken-wing chow-down, Timberlake dished on how his 2006 NSFW digital short alongside Andy Samberg almost didn’t make it to air. As the two “hit it off immediately” in their first meeting set up by show producer Lorne Michaels, the three bunkered down in the writer’s room.
“So we were like, ‘What if we came up with like a duo of guys who are still stuck in a time and a certain style like the silk suits, the herringbone chains, and well and meticulously sculpted facial hair,'” the 39-year-old singer recalled before coming to the realization *NSYNC dressed like that back in the day.
Michaels suggested the “popcorn-at-the-movies prank… with your d— in the popcorn,” but Timberlake found the idea “super creepy” and later all-too-fitting for his and Samberg’s inappropriate characters.
As the team continued fleshing out the idea, Timberlake and Samberg spent all day Friday shooting the nearly three-minute sketch. But when they wrapped filming around 3 a.m. on Saturday, the FCC came in to throw a wrench in their plan. “They’re like, ‘You can’t say d— on the air,'” the pop star told Hot Ones host Sean Evans. “And we were like, ‘Oh, right! But if you just bleep it, will we be fine?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, if you bleep it out, then it’s fine.’ And I think the irony of that is that the funnier version is the bleeped-out version.”
The 10-time Grammy-winning artist kept up his hot streak of creative hits by ranking his five solo projects. His personal No. 1 is his sophomore album FutureSex/LoveSounds, while Justified came in at No. 2. (He even recalled Marilyn Manson telling him at the time that his debut album was “the most genius thing that’s come out in the last five years.”) The first edition of The 20/20 Experience landed at No. 3, Man of the Woods snagged the No. 4 spot, and The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2 rounded out the list at No. 5.
Watch the entire Hot Ones episode with Timberlake below.
