What Happened Between Megan Thee Stallion and Justin Timberlake at the VMAs Last Night?

Megan Thee Stallion and Justin Timberlake at the 2023 VMAs

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 13 September 2023

In further proof that everything is not always as it immediately seems, multiple sources are telling Page Six that what looked like a heated exchange between Megan Thee Stallion and Justin Timberlake backstage at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards was anything but.

In this video, Megan Thee Stallion “seemed to be annoyed with Timberlake as he walked by her backstage,” Page Six reports. She “can be seen raising her finger and talked animatedly to Timberlake, who was with his *NSYNC bandmates.”

But there was no tension, sources told the outlet. “Meg loves Justin,” one said. “She was saying ‘No, no, no, we’ve never met before.’ It was their first time meeting, and she was excited.” Another source added “Megan didn’t want this to be the first meeting with Justin Timberlake so [she] said, ‘Not now,’” they said.

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Timberlake reunited with his fellow *NSYNC bandmates Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, and Chris Kirkpatrick to present the award for Best Pop Video, and “the crowd erupted into delighted cheers when the boy band walked onto the VMAs stage together for the first time in 10 years,” Page Six reports. For her part, Megan was at the show to perform her and Cardi B’s new single, “Bongos.” The two ran into one another after Timberlake and *NSYNC presented the award, per Entertainment Tonight, and a source speaking to that outlet confirmed that it was a sweet moment, not a tense one: Justin apparently told Megan “It’s so nice to meet you,” to which she replied “No, no! This don’t count, this don’t count! We gotta meet proper.”

The rapper cleared up any feud rumors herself by posting a video to social media with Timberlake, captioning it “I just talk with my hands. lol @justintimberlake love ya.”

Another clue from the start that it was all love, no argument? TMZ correctly points out that, if you look closely, Timberlake’s *NSYNC bandmate Joey Fatone “smiles during the whole exchange,” the outlet reports, “so yeah, no beef.”

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.