Without fail, it’s not the last week of April on the internet until you see a photo or gif of Justin Timberlake in his bleached blonde hair from his *NSYNC days singing “It’s Gonna Be May.” The popular meme is a play on words thanks to the iconic way Timberlake delivers “me” like “May.” And as the boy band singer recently shared, there’s actually a story behind why he sings the song in such a specific way.
Earlier this month, all the *NSYNC members, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, J.C. Chasez, and Chris Kirkpatrick, appeared in one place for the first time in a decade at the MTV Video Music Awards ahead of the group also reuniting for Trolls Band Together. Then, the boy band took on the Hot Ones challenge this week to eat spicy wings and reflect on their legendary career in pop music. Amidst the conversation, Timberlake recalled how his pronunciation of “It’s Gonna Be Me” came about. In his words:
I sang ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ and he was like ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ and he was like ‘It’s May, may’… You know what’s funny specifically to Max Martin, the parts of their English that were broken actually made them catchier songwriters because they would put words away that almost didn’t make sense, but when you sang them they were more memorable, right?
“It’s Gonna Be Me” was recorded between New York City and Stockholm, Sweden with Swedish producers Max Martin, Andreas Carlsson and Rami Yacoub penning the song for *NSYNC. As Timberlake shared, he initially was going to sing the famed chorus differently, but he received a note from one of the producers and he went with it. Check out the full clip of Timberlake talking about it below:
.@NSYNC on the story behind “it’s gonna be MAY” 💀 pic.twitter.com/3yJkfoTbB0September 22, 2023
As Timberlake and his band members joked, he of course had no idea that memes would be created years after the song was released in 2000. Now, his face delivering the line may now and forever be part of how our culture celebrates the start of May. What’s amazing is how that simple line delivery did really impact the popularity of the song. Their Swedish producers were 100% on to something with that note for Timberlake. Check out the entire Hot Ones interview below:
During the reunion interview, *NSYNC also talked about the time they were almost in Stars Wars: Attack of the Clones, and they shared wild stories from their tours. In regard to whether they’ll tour again after over 20 years, Joey Fatone shared that there’s nothing currently in the works, but fans should “yell at Sony” if they really want one.
*NSYNC has a new song called “Better Place” coming out on September 29, ahead of the band starring in the 2023 new movie releaseTrolls Band Together, which is hitting theaters this November 17.