Justin Timberlake was charged early Tuesday with drunken driving in a village in New York’s Hamptons, after police said he ran a stop sign and veered out of his lane in the posh seaside summer retreat.
Timberlake was driving a 2025 BMW in Sag Harbor around 12:30 a.m. when an officer stopped him and determined he was intoxicated, according to a court document.
“His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” the court papers said.
The 43-year-old told the officer he had one martini and was following some friends home, according to the documents. After being arrested and taken to a police station in nearby East Hampton, he refused a breath test, said the court papers, which listed his occupation as “professional” and said he’s “self-employed.”
The 10-time Grammy winner was released without bond later Tuesday morning after being arraigned in Sag Harbor. He was charged with a driving-while-intoxicated misdemeanor, and his next court date was scheduled for July 26, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office said.
“DWI is an acronym for driving while intoxicated. A similar acronym, DUI, is used in other states which stands for driving under the influence, and yet another acronym, DWAI, may be encountered which signifies driving while ability impaired,” according to the State of New York.
A DWI is defined as “Driving while intoxicated .08 BAC (blood alcohol concentration) or higher or other evidence of intoxication,” the New York Courts state on its website.
Timberlake’s lawyer and representatives did not immediately return requests for comment from The Associated Press.
This happened as the “Mirrors” crooner is currently on his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour.
He’s scheduled to hit the stage of Chicago’s United Center on June 21 and 22.
Sag Harbor, a onetime whaling village mentioned in Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby-Dick,” is nestled amid the Hamptons, around 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of New York City. The Hamptons have long been a hot spot for the rich and famous, and various stars and otherwise prominent people have had brushes with the law there.
Located on a bay, Sag Harbor for years cultivated a more down-to-earth, “un-Hampton” reputation than its oceanfront neighbors — a place where people gathered not at a country club but at a corner bar called the Corner Bar. There is still a five-and-dime store, and a mainstay of the social scene is the quaint, cozy mid-19th-century American Hotel.
The village has long had its share of prominent homeowners and residents, including singer-songwriter Billy Joel, former CNN host Don Lemon, Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck, feminist writer Betty Friedan, and Pulitzer Prize winners Colson Whitehead and Lanford Wilson. Whitehead’s novel “Sag Harbor” is set there, particularly in a beachfront enclave where generations of Black families have spent summers.
In recent decades, Sag Harbor has increasingly become a destination for celebrities, wannabes and even cruise ships. Manhattan-like restaurants and pricey boutiques have multiplied. Homes fetch seven or eight figures, and the village’s evolving nature has prompted grumbles from some longtime residents about traffic, crowds and a changing character.