Justin Timberlake has given fans a taste of new music as a solo artist for the first time in almost six years.
The 42-year-old American singer teased the new song “Selfish” which accompanied an Instagram Reel of him rehearsing at the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee, where he played an intimate show on Friday evening.
The short video entitled One Night Only shows Timberlake before the show wandering around the venue, microphone in hand.
In videos taken of the event, Timberlakecan be heard telling the crowd: “New music? Well, we didn’t get dressed up for nothing did we? All right, let’s do it. This is called Selfish.”
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After the performance, Timberlake posted another clip to his Instagram page captioned “Justin Timberlake Presents: Everything I Thought It Was”.
This is rumoured to be the title of a new album where the singer stares into a distant sunset with his back to the camera while Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro narrates: “Ah there’s Justin. Why won’t he turn around. What the **** is he staring at?”
His last album, Man Of The Woods featuring hits like Say Something and Morning Light, was released almost six years ago in February 2018.
Since then he has featured on the 2021 song Innocent with Justine Skye and 2022 track Stay With Me alongside Calvin Harris, Halsey and Pharrell Williams.
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In 2023, the singer released his first song in more than 20 years with NSYNC called Better Place when they reunited for the film Trolls Band Together.
According to the Official Charts Company, Timberlake has four chart-topping UK singles with SexyBack (2006), Give It To Me with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado (2007), 4 Minutes with Madonna (2008) and Mirrors (2013).
He has also had three number one UK albums with Justified (2002), FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006) and The 20/20 Experience (2013).
Timberlake is also an accomplished actor, notably starring in the films In Time and Friends With Benefits.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.