Justin Timberlake is sorry about his knucklehead friend's silly, mocking-the-homeless video thing
As you no doubt recall from your past 48 hours of constant chuckling, the merger of Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake featured an extra-special wedding video that fulfilled the age-old custom of having "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, something using the homeless as a comedic prop." After Gawker posted an excerpt, the maker of said video—suddenly invisible real estate agent Justin Huchel—issued his apology in the form of a deeply ironic threatened lawsuit for exploiting him in the name of a few cheap yuks. But today its most famous (and therefore most important) unwittingly involved party, Justin Timberlake, has responded with his own, far more sincere apology.
In a lengthy letter posted to his website, Timberlake says that, while he had nothing to do with the video, he feels he must speak out on the "very upsetting portrayal of the people closest to me and myself," as no one likes to be portrayed in an unflattering light to suit someone else's selfish purposes. To sum things up from there, leaving out inspirational quotes from his grandfather and two different "pants" analogies: Timberlake seeks to clear up that he "had absolutely ZERO contribution to it," that it wasn't actually shown at the wedding, and that he is "NOT defending the video," as "I think we can all agree that it was distasteful, even though that was not its intention."
To that end, Timberlake continues not-defending the "silly" video and its intentions as "a joke and not in any way a mockery" by explaining said joke, which any good comedian will tell you to never do:
My friends are good people. This was clearly a lapse in judgment which I'm sure no one who is reading this is exempt from. But, I don't believe it was made to be insensitive. More so, I think it was made as a joke on me not having that many friends attending my own wedding (which IS kind of funny if you think about it).
Now do you get it? See, Timberlake didn't have that many friends attending his own wedding, which is just like if he were pals with a bunch of homeless people who couldn't make it because they are homeless. Actually, that is kind of funny if you think about it, and stop thinking about how it's not particularly evidence that you're a good person if your first thought to illustrate this comic observation is to videotape poor people on the street. "Man, ol' J.T. is such a loser that he only has a few pals like Andy Samberg and Jimmy Fallon and Timbaland and only so much room on the private jet to fly them to Italy—so here, look at these homeless people. Hey Timbo, having a million dollars is cool. You know what isn't cool? Not having any dollars and being homeless!" Nailed it.
Anyway, that questionable tangent aside, Timberlake admirably accepts full responsibility for the actions of his "associative knuckleheads" and their wacky tomfoolery, saying that he's "deeply sorry to anyone who was offended by the video"—which is a much classier reply than anyone who was actually involved with the video has managed so far. He also adds, "You can bet your ass that I'm having my friend do at least 100 hours of community service… Boom"—"boom" being the sound of Justin Huchel's career imploding.