He called off the wedding. Justin called off the wedding.
I was held in utter disbelief. How could he call the wedding off? How could he suddenly lose Caylin's affections and cancel the wedding?
My eyes scanned the article as I read it one more time, just to be assured that I wasn't misreading it.
Justin Timberlake of *NSYNC fame recently called off his wedding to longtime flame Caylin Masterson. When asked why the engagement was broken Mr. Timberlake's response was, "I do not care to reveal that information. It's a private matter." No one else will reveal the reason why the wedding was nixed.
Timberlake proposed to Ms. Masterson at a concert in Dallas on June 22.
Hoping to find some hope that Justin was doing better, and that the group continued to be successful, I flipped to the next page but was hit with a bigger shock when I saw the next headline:
JC Chasez of the pop group *NSYNC has now left the acclaimed group. A statement released by his attorney Jason Hennesey on November 19, reading, "Mr. Chasez has decided that it is in his best interest that he leaves *NSYNC."
Mr. Chasez made a statement released later the same day to the public, which was aired on MTV. "I must say that I have enjoyed my years in the group," he said, "but there is a time to fly away, to move on. Now is my time. I want to thank the fans for always being there... you all will hold a place in my heart."
His bandmates are flabbergasted to say the least. The group's eldest member, Chris Kirkpatrick, is reported to have said, "We're shocked and hurt that JC is leaving us. When you've been with a group of people for so long, given them six years of your life, shared the successes... it hurts to see them just up and leave. But we wish him the best. We all do."
The release of the group's currently untitled album is still a touchy subject. Says Joey Fatone Jr., "We don't know if we want to release it without JC. [It] wouldn't feel right."
No statements have been released from Lance Bass or Justin Timberlake. Timberlake's engagement to longtime girlfriend Caylin Masterson was called off a week before Chasez's departure.
Slowly, before my eyes, *NSYNC was beginning to break apart. First, Justin's cancellation of his wedding, now JC leaving the group... what was to happen next?
A month after JC Chasez left the Grammy-winning quintet *NSYNC the group says goodbye to another member. This time it's Justin Timberlake.
The 21-year old has decided to leave the group. In his tearful press release that, like Chasez's, aired on MTV, he said, "I feel that I have to leave the group not because JC is gone, but because I have personal issues that I must address. I must say that this is the hardest thing I have had to do over the past six years. I send all my love to the fans, thanks to the media, and to the other guys... you've been my brothers for six years of my life; six of the best years of my life. I love you and wish you the best."
No statements have been issued from the remaining three members of the group: Lance Bass, Joey Fatone Jr., and Chris Kirkpatrick.
I felt so tempted to call Mom at work, and ask her how she had reacted to all of this. Had she been upset when the engagement was broken? Had she cried when JC left? I wanted to know how she felt when her favorite band was breaking up.
The more I read, the worse things got. Because JC and Justin had left, Chris, Joey, and Lance were left in a bind. Did they want to replace those two-the two that had been in the group from the beginning? Would they try to perform as a trio? Or would they disband? The answer came on New Year's Day of 2003.
For seven years pop group *NSYNC tore up young girl's hearts, said bye, bye, bye to heartbreakers, saw one of its members get married, one break the engagement off, and its two most lusted after members leave. But now, the group is officially ending.
The three remaining *NSYNCers, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone Jr., and Chris Kirkpatrick held a press conference in the group's home base of Orlando, Fl., on December 31. "We've decided that we will not look for new members, nor will we continue performing as a group," Bass said. "We feel that we would never be the same band we were with Justin and JC. So we have decided to disband."
Within the past four months, ex band member Justin Timberlake broke his engagement to his longtime love, JC Chasez left the group, and within a month after Chasez's demise, Timberlake left too.
"We want to say thank you to everyone who believed in us from the start," Fatone said later. "There were people who doubted us from the beginning, people who said in '99 that we wouldn't make it to 2000, people who said that we wouldn't break records or be as successful as we are now. But someone out there did believe in us, they had faith that we could do anything."
"Our fans have been wonderful," Kirkpatrick added. "They stood by us through our legal battle in '99, they stood by us when I got married, they even stood by us after JC and Justin left. They have our undying respect and admiration for that. We would be nothing without them."
The group is making their farewell appearance on a two-hour long show on MTV this Saturday. The fans anxiously await this appearance, but some also mourn.
"I thought they were going to be around for a long time," 19-year old Ashleigh Thomas, a resident of Tampa said. "It's sad to see them go."
My hands shook as I put the book down. I couldn't believe it. They had proved the critics wrong and had broken records over a period of seven years. And it took only four months for them to break apart.
I knew that there were more articles in the book, but I just couldn't find it in myself to read them. I closed it and placed it with the rest of the books and magazines I had used for the project. For a moment, I felt as if I had been pushed back in time, and I was one of the *NSYNC fans who had just discovered that the group was breaking up. For a brief moment, I was my mother, any of the fans who had been there from the start, feeling the pain. I curled up in bed, fearing continuing my research.