Justin Timberlake Ignites Social Media Storm During BET Awards

Justin Timberlake ignited a brief fit of social media outrage with a couple tweets he posted during the BET Awards. He was accused of cultural appropriation, hypocrisy, and for allowing Janet Jackson’s career to take the fall for the regrettable wardrobe malfunction during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII.

The “CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!” singer first tweeted about Jesse Williams’ speech, in which Williams won the Humanitarian Award. Timberlake tweeted his praise of Williams’ speech writing, “@iJesseWilliams tho…#inspired #BET2016.”

Timberlake began receiving angry responses towards the tweet, and then things went awry when he decided to responded to one particular tweet. Reporter Ernest Jones tweeted, “So does this mean you’re going to stop appropriating our music and culture? And apologize to Janet too. #BETAwards.”

Timberlake responded to Jones in what mistakenly came off as a dismissive tweet. Timberlake tweeted, “Oh you sweet soul. The more you realize that we are the same, the more we can have a conversation. Bye.”

ET reports that many then called out Timberlake for not using his platform to “speak for black rights and for the damage he caused to Jackson’s career more than a decade ago.”

Then in an attempt to diffuse the situation, Timberlake sent out a series of three tweets to try to clarify his tweets. The first tweet read, “I feel misunderstood. I responded to a specific tweet that wasn’t meant to be a general response. I shouldn’t have responded anyway…”

The second tweet read: “I forget this forum sometimes…I was truly inspired by @iJesseWilliams speech because I really do feel that we are all one…A human race.”

In the the third and final tweet of the evening, Timberlake wrote: “I apologize to anyone that felt I was out of turn. I have nothing but LOVE FOR YOU AND ALL OF US.”

Do you think Justin Timberlake was deserving of the amount of backlash he received?