Justin Timberlake, the former boy band member turned solo artist and actor, refused to take an alcohol test multiple times during his arrest for an alleged drunk driving incident Tuesday, police records show. He did, however, take a field sobriety test, which police say he failed.
As previously reported, the 43-year-old star, who was most recently in the news for his role in ex-girlfriend Britney Spears’s 2023 memoir, was arrested at 12:37 a.m. on Tuesday, June 18 in Sag Harbor, New York, a village in the state’s storied Hamptons. According to police, Timberlake was stopped by officers after they said they observed a driver in a grey 2025 BMW fail to acknowledge a stop sign, and then swerve in between lanes. It was only after the vehicle was stopped that police discovered that the driver was Timberlake, the New York Times reports.
According to a tweet by CNN reporter Elizabeth Wagmeister, police say that after Timberlake was pulled over, he refused to take a breathalyzer test—which estimates a level of intoxication by measuring how much alcohol is in a person’s exhale—three times. Justin Timberlake’s lawyer, Ed Burke, confirmed that detail to Us Weekly, saying he “refused a breath test” while detained.
Via statement, Burke told Page Six that he is looking “forward to vigorously defending Mr. Timberlake against these allegations. He will have a lot to say at the appropriate time. He is currently awaiting full discovery from the DA’s office.” (Vanity Fair has reached out to Timberlake’s representatives for comment but did not receive a response as of publication time.)
According to Timberlake’s arrest report, which was filed by police at the Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Tuesday, the officer who pulled Timberlake over said he had “bloodshot and glassy” eyes and smelled strongly of alcohol. During his field sobriety tests, including “walking in a straight line and standing on one leg,” Timberlake “performed poorly,” police say.
Timberlake “had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot, and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” Wagmeister quotes the arrest report as saying.
But according to the report, Timberlake says he only had a single drink before his tangle with the law, telling police that “I had one martini and followed my friends home.” Surveillance video of a car believed to be Timberlake’s shortly before the incident has been shared by CNN, and does not depict any evident impairment.
Julian Ramirez, the dining director of Sag Harbor’s American Hotel, tells the NYT that Timberlake might have had that fateful martini at his business. The restaurant, which closes at 10, boasts a bar that stays open after its dining hours have ended. Hotel owner Ted Conklin tells TMZ that Timberlake was a “great guest and a nice guy” and says he was not overserved during his time at the venue.
Following his arrest, Timberlake was held overnight, then appeared in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court for his 9:30 a.m. arraignment on one count of driving while intoxicated and two traffic violations. He was released without bail, and the next hearing in the case—which Timberlake is not required to attend—will be held on July 26.
Eve Batey
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