Justin Randall Timberlake (born January 31, 1981) is an
American pop and R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer,
and actor. He came to fame as one of the lead singers of pop boy band
'N Sync and has won four Grammy Awards as well as an Emmy Award. In
2002, he released his debut solo album, Justified, which sold over 9 million copies worldwide.
Timberlake's second solo release, FutureSex/LoveSounds, was released in 2006 with the U.S. number-one hit singles "SexyBack", "My Love", and "What Goes Around... Comes Around". With his first two albums, Timberlake has sold over 15 million albums worldwide. He has started a record label called Tennman Records and a fashion label, William Rast.
Timberlake was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Randall Timberlake and Lynn (née Bomar). He has British ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Charles L. Timberlake, husband of Bobbye Joice, was a Baptist minister, and Timberlake was raised in the Baptist religion, although he considers himself more "spiritual than religious", though still a Christian. His parents divorced about 1985 and both have remarried; his mother, who now runs an entertainment company called Just-in Time Entertainment, remarried to Paul Harless, a banker, when Justin was aged 5; while his father, a choir director at a Baptist church, has two children, Jonathan (born c. 1993) and Stephen (born c. 1998), from his second marriage to Lisa. A half-sister, Laura Chwieseni, died shortly after birth in 1997 and is mentioned on one of Timberlake's record acknowledgments as "My Angel in Heaven". Timberlake grew up in Millington, a small town just north of Memphis. His first attempts at a singing career saw him singing country music songs on Star Search as "Justin Randall".
