There is a Very Good Chance NSYNC is Reuniting by the End of the Year

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 19 August 2023

Can this be true? Tell me, can this be real? (IYKYK.) Entertainment Tonight has gotten our millennial hearts racing with news that NSYNC might be reuniting for a new song, to be featured in the movie Trolls Band Together. The film is the third installment in the Trolls franchise, and its trailer hinted at a boy band reunion storyline for Justin Timberlake’s character, Branch. (For those who may not be familiar—although how is that possible?—before his breakout solo career, Timberlake was one-fifth of the late 1990s, early 2000s boy band NSYNC.)

“JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, and Chris Kirkpatrick are expected to have surprise roles in the third Trolls film, Trolls Band Together, with Justin Timberlake,” a source exclusively told ET. The source added that the quintet will also reunite as NSYNC to release a new song for the movie, their first song as a group since 2001’s “Girlfriend.”

The movie’s trailer does tease the connection between the character Branch and Timberlake’s real-life boy band days of yore, revealing that Branch and his four brothers were once in a group together called BroZone. When one brother is kidnapped, another tracks Branch down to reunite the group and save their brother: “Branch, we’re out of sync,” the character Floyd said in a flashback included in the trailer (dropping a massive hint if there ever was one). “We’ve gone from boys to men [editor’s note: another boy band hint], and now there’s only one direction [me again: another one!] for us to go: to the back streets [last time: yeah, the writing is on the wall].”

Fans have been clamoring for a reunion for years, and while the group members have assembled in different combinations for special events—most recently to perform “Bye Bye Bye” at Ryan Cabrera’s wedding to Alexa Bliss—this would mark the first time that Timberlake has performed with his other four bandmates since the group split back in 2002, ET reports.

When NSYNC sans Timberlake joined Ariana Grande onstage at Coachella in 2019, Fatone said it made him nostalgic for the group’s touring days and added “never say never” when it comes to getting the group fully back together. “We were excited, but it was Ariana’s show,” Fatone said. “So we were just like, ‘Hey, we’re coming in, having a great time.’ And that’s what we did. We had a blast doing it ‘cause it was, like, two songs, let’s have fun, no stress on us.”

Trolls Band Together hits theaters on November 17—and if you see an alarming number of 1990s boy band fans there, you’ll know why.

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.