If there’s one event we’ll never outlive, it’s the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. That infamous moment when Justin Timberlake accidentally exposed Janet Jackson’s breast to the TV-viewing world for a fraction of a second will live on forever—as evidenced by the way it never seems to stop popping up in the national conversation. We remembered it just last month, as Timberlake signed with Jackson’s publicist in a moment of pure irony. And now, it’s returned via the ongoing saga of embattled CBS chief Les Moonves.
In a story published Thursday in HuffPost, sources told Yashar Ali that Moonves was furious over the scandal—and for years held a grudge against Jackson specifically, obsessed with derailing her career. Moonves didn’t believe the performers’ assertion that Timberlake removed both Jackson’s leather bustier and the red lace underneath it by accident; instead, he believed they planned it as a ploy to drum up controversy, according to the story. And he was particularly furious with Jackson, sources said, because he did not think she was sorry enough for what happened. Both Timberlake and Jackson were banned from the 2004 Grammys—but Moonves changed his mind about Timberlake when the singer tearfully apologized.
Moonves essentially blacklisted Jackson from Viacom, the report says: he ordered all of the company’s radio stations, as well as its television networks VH1 and MTV, not to play Jackson’s music. Per HuffPost, that decision tanked album sales for Jackson’s 2004 album, Damita Jo, which went on sale only a month after the Super Bowl. Even seven years later, Moonves reportedly hadn’t let the incident go; Ali reports that when Jackson signed a book deal with CBS-owned book publisher Simon & Schuster, he began fuming anew—and demanded to know, “How the fuck did she slip through?” He reportedly told one source that he would retaliate against whoever was responsible for the decision, but it’s unclear whether that ever happened.
A representative for CBS declined to comment on HuffPost’s report.
The “Nipplegate” fallout unfolded very differently for Timberlake and Jackson, in ways that are impossible to ignore. Timberlake’s career continued to thrive. In fact, he returned to perform at the Super Bowl this year for the first time since 2004. (It was broadcast on NBC.) Jackson, on the other hand, has seen her album sales precipitously decline. Jackson appears to have paid an outsized price for the crime of showing the world her breast for half a second, especially considering it was Timberlake who ripped the garment.
