Britney Spears’ fans are banding together to get her 2011 song “Criminal” to return to the charts amid Justin Timberlake’s DWI arrest.
On Tuesday, June 18, around 12:37 a.m., Timberlake, 43, was placed under arrest after police determined he was “operating his vehicle in an intoxicated condition,” the Sag Harbor Police said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.
Following the news of Timberlake’s arrest, several Spears fans took to social media to encourage others to buy the singer’s Femme Fatale hit “Criminal.” The song was released as a single from her seventh studio album on Sept. 30, 2011.
At the time of publication, the 42-year-old pop star’s song was No. 68 on the iTunes Pop Chart.
iTunes
The recent rise in the song’s popularity follows Timberlake’s arrest early Tuesday morning in Sag Harbor, New York, when he allegedly drove his 2025 BMW through a stop sign, and “fail[ed] to keep on the right side of the roadway,” per the police report.
The officer initiated a traffic stop, and noted that Timberlake’s “eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot, and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests.”
“I had one martini and I followed my friends home,” Timberlake told authorities, according to the arrest report.
Dave Hogan/Getty
He was then taken to Sag Harbor Police Headquarters to be processed. He was charged with one count of driving while intoxicated and two citations, one for running a stop sign and one for failure to keep in lane.
Police said in a statement he was held overnight for arraignment Tuesday morning. He was released on his own recognizance following his court appearance at the Sag Harbor Village Justice Court. The singer is due back in court for a hearing on July 26.
Sag Harbor Police Department
This isn’t the first time Spears’ fans have helped her songs resurface on a chart.
In January, Timberlake released a single and music video titled “Selfish,” the same name as another one of Spears’ 2011 singles. But her fans quickly rallied around her song on social media, bringing it back to the No. 1 spot on the iTunes charts on Jan. 26.
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The charting of both “Selfish” and “Criminal” comes after Spears made several revelations about her former boyfriend in her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me.
