Fans Not Impressed with Justin Timberlake's Prince Tribute

Let this be a lesson: just because you're in Minneapolis, don't think that you'll win friends by invoking the image of Prince. Justin Timberlake found out the hard way that Prince fans are touchy about their hero. When Timberlake pulled the Purple One into his Super Bowl halftime show, Twitter was quick to tell him how wrong he was, as Twitter typically does.

Via Us Weekly.

After performing a medley of some of his biggest hits during the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, February 4, Justin Timberlake honored the late Prince. He sang the Minnesota native’s 1984 hit “I Will Die 4 U” alongside a projected image of the singer, who passed away in 2016. The entire city of Minneapolis was also entirely lit up in purple.

While the performance was beautiful, multiple Prince fans were not happy that Timberlake, 37, decided to honor the eight-time Grammy winner with a hologram-like projection. The legendary singer spoke out about the use of holograms in 1998, revealing he never wanted one.

“That’s the most demonic thing imaginable. Everything is as it is, and it should be. If I was meant to jam with Duke Ellington, we would have lived in the same age. That whole virtual reality thing … it really is demonic. And I am not a demon,” he told Guitar World. “Also, what they did with that Beatles song [‘Free As a Bird’], manipulating John Lennon’s voice to have him singing from across the grave … that’ll never happen to me. To prevent that kind of thing from happening is another reason why I want artistic control.”

Prince’s former fiancée, friend and longtime collaborator Sheila E. tweeted that Prince told her not to ever let a hologram of him happen. She also tweeted on Saturday night that she’d spoke to Timberlake and he’d told her that a hologram was not going to be used.

Get the rest of the story at Us Weekly.

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