Justin Timberlake Accidentally Broke Into Alcatraz Once

Justin Timberlake may have lowkey broke into the Alcatraz prison along with fellow *NSYNC member, Joey Fatone, way back in the early aughts while they were in the middle of shooting the music video for their hit, “This I Promise You,” in San Francisco. JT recently made a stop at The Ellen DeGeneres Show to promote Trolls World Tour, alongside his collaborators on the animated film’s soundtrack, SZA and Anderson .Paak. During their visit, Ellen had them play a game of “Spill The Tea,” where guests have to share a secret with the show’s producers and Ellen has to then try to correctly match the secret to the contestant. The game revealed a lot, like how Anderson has a tattoo on his stomach that says “trust your gut,” but Justin’s story about unintentionally breaking into one of the most historic prisons in the world really takes the cake.

“I accidentally broke into Alcatraz one time,” he begins. “We were shooting a video in the Redwoods outside of San Francisco, and we ended up shooting this one scene on this pier directly across from Alcatraz. At that time, I was watching The Untouchables over and over again, and I was obsessed with the fact that Al Capone was—that they put him in Alcatraz. I said, ‘Who wants to go see Alcatraz with me?’ and Joey [Fatone], who’s usually game for anything, he was like, ‘I’ll go with you.'”

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The two of them ended up hitching a boat ride to the island with the fire department in exchange for some photos with the group, but there was a catch: they didn’t have tickets, and they couldn’t buy any at the actual prison. They successfully snuck in by pretending that the people behind them in line had their tickets, and just joined a tour group once they got inside.

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“We had just gotten to Al Capone’s cell,” Justin continued, “and we get a tap on the shoulder and they’re like, ‘Come with me,’ and I was like, ‘Joe, we’re gonna go down in history as the dumbest people ever. We got caught breaking into a prison.'” However, things didn’t turn out quite as bad as they could have. “They let us go away with a warning,” he explained, “and obviously, we had to pay for the tickets.” Phew! Check out the music video for “This I Promise You” that led to this spontaneous “crime.”