Joey Fatone Just Confirmed Exactly Why Justin Timberlake Wasn't At *NSYNC's Coachella Reunion

It ain't no lie, logistics made JT say "bye, bye, bye" to Coachella 2019. In a recent interview with TMZ, Joey Fatone confirmed why Justin Timberlake missed *NSYNC’s reunion during Ariana Grande's Coachella set Sunday evening. When the entertainment news outlet caught up with the Masked Singer contestant at LAX the Monday after he performed alongside the “Thank U, Next” powerhouse, he said, just as TMZ reported earlier that day, JT didn’t participate in Sunday's reunion because the pop stars’ schedules simply didn’t align. “He was still doing his tour,” Fatone explained. “He just finished his tour so he wasn’t able to come back to do rehearsals with us.” And when asked if Timberlake would’ve gone to the reunion at Arichella had his schedule allowed it, the Dancing with the Stars competitor replied, “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You didn’t read it on TMZ?” Well played, Sir Rabbit.

On Sunday, April 14, Fatone, Lance Bass, JC Chasez, and Chris Kirkpatrick descended upon Grande’s headlining set at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and delivered an instantly legendary pop music performance. Grande and the four *NSYNCers blessed us with a mashup of “It Makes Me Ill” and “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored" before launching into a rousing version of “Tearin’ Up My Heart.” It was such a dream to fans, if you can believe.

The reunion was only missing one thing: the fifth member of *NSYNC. A source told Entertainment Tonight that Grande and her manager, Scooter Braun, contacted Chasez’s rep just one weekend before the performance. And so, the four members of *NSYNC who were free to rehearse got right to rehearsing. Fatone, Chasez, Bass, and Kirkpatrick reportedly started prepping for their reunion last week, which also happened to be the final week of Timberlake’s Man of the Woods Tour.

So, there you have it. As Fatone said, Timberlake had to skip busy with The Man of The Woods Tour, which wrapped up on Saturday night. JT theoretically could’ve made it out to Indio Sunday evening (but what do I know? I haven’t seen the guy’s day planner!), but he could not make it to *NSYNC’s Arichella rehearsals. Considering how long it's been since all five *NSYNCers last performed together, rehearsals don't feel like something you can skip in this particular scenario. But again what do I know? I'm no pop icon.

Sure, he could’ve rescheduled those final dates in order to make Arichella, but it’s worth noting that those last tour stops had already been postponed once before. Last fall, the “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” singer had to postpone a few shows due to injured vocal cords, and he rebooted the tour in January. Rather than issue another round of rain checks, JT played his rebooted tour dates, watched the other members of *NSYNC tear up hearts with Grande via the festival’s live stream, and reposted the selfie four-fifths of the boy band took with the woman of the hour. “You guys killed it last night,” Timberlake wrote. They sure did. If he was part of Arichella, he probably would've killed it, too. But hey, we'll never know, will we?

Then again, there's always Weekend 2.