Getting the Super Bowl halftime performer on your show just hours after one of the biggest shows of their life is a pretty tough booking, but the fact that Justin Timberlake was this year’s performer and that his best bud Jimmy Fallon was hosting a live post-Super Bowl edition of The Tonight Show after the game was the perfect storm necessary to make it happen. Timberlake stopped by the show, and while his Super Bowl performance was light on songs from his just-released Man Of The Woods album, he made up for it on Fallon by busting out “Supplies” and by bringing Chris Stapleton on to close out the show their collaboration, “Say Something.”
Timberlake and Fallon also did a “Songversation” skit, hanging out before the show and singing with each other about shirts and cookies, and Timberlake sat down as one of the show’s guests. Among other things, he talked about his Prince tribute during halftime (which had a mixed reception, even though it wasn’t a hologram), and he said that the combination of his love for Prince and the game being in Minneapolis inspired him to pay homage to The Purple One:
“It’s a moment for me, if I’m being quite honest, because he’s always been the pinnacle of musicianship for me. When we decided… the serendipity and synergy that we would be in Minneapolis, and that he’s such a special thing here, aside from what he is all over the world, I just felt like I wanted to do something for this city and something for him that would just be the ultimate homage to what I consider the G.O.A.T. of musicians.”
Watch Timberlake’s Tonight Show performances and other clips from the show above.
