Justin Timberlake was photographed holding hands with Alisha Wainwright, co-star in his upcoming movie Palmer, like him, her, and a group of others sat on a balcony. After this photograph, he posted a social media apology that sounded more fitting if he had been caught slitting her throat, not just holding her hand.

"I displayed a strong lapse in judgement… I remorse my conduct. I ought to have recognised higher... I apologise to my superb spouse and household for placing them via such an embarrassing state of affairs,” he posted.

Why is Timberlake apologising so profusely for holding another woman’s hand? Let me explain. 

Remember that time in the early 00s when sexy was missing? No one knew where it was. We kept looking and couldn’t find it until we found out that leading pop star of the era Justin Timberlake is the one who had taken it. 

Fortunately, in 2006 he brought it back, even announcing its return via a hit song, SexyBack.

"I’m bringing sexy back. I’m bringing sexy back,” he chanted.

We should have suspected he was the culprit all along because for a sustained period of his career, Timberlake had been quite prolifically sexy.

Justin Timberlake was so sexy that… I can’t find any other way to do that sentence. Justin Timberlake was as sexy as Justin Timberlake. He was his own simile. 

He started by having a relationship with the most desirable pop star woman of the era, Britney Spears (this was before Beyoncé reached the peak of her powers — at the time Britney Spears was the SI unit, the scientific standard of desirability. Dudes romanced girls by saying, "Baby, I love you so much that I would only cheat on you with Britney Spears ONCE. Just once. And no one else.” 

And Britney Spears ended updating Justin Timberlake. Because what choice did she have? He was so sexy he was Justin Timberlake.

I still don’t feel I have explained how sexy Timberlake was. Let me further expound.

So, Timberlake was dating the hottest woman we, as global pop culture, knew about, and then he allegedly went and cheated on her.

Men are trash, but cheating on Britney Spears is like jumping out of a trash can into a nuclear waste disposal site. 

Even Eric Benet, who until Jay-Z cheated on Beyoncé, had set the bar for ‘trashitude’ when he cheated on Halle Berry, looked at the news of Timberlake cheating and backspaced the #NotAllMen tweet he had been preparing to send.

You think I am making this up? Just because Twitter had not been invented yet? Are you a member of the Illuminati? If not, how do you know? Us we were using Twitter. Me, Benet, Berry, Britney, Beyoncé, and George W Bush. Follow me @bazanye for more lies of this nature.

Anyway, time went by, years passed, rivers flowed.

Justin Timberlake went from being the hottest male pop singer to being a successful actor, then slowed down that train and pretty much became just another figure from a bygone decade that occasionally popped up to voice an animated character in a kids movie. 

Most notably, he got married, settled down and grew up, we would believe, and, after bringing sexy back, left sexy behind.

But as we have all been constantly reminded, men are trash. And there is limited recycling capability. His wife knows this.

And so when he was photographed holding hands with a colleague, it was not the same as when you and your colleagues hold hands. It was not the same as when your colleagues hold hands with you.

Just because he hasn’t been publicly promiscuous in the past few years, it doesn’t mean he still isn’t sexy. 

Jessica Biel is his wife. She knows. She knows. This is the simple explanation: Biel knows that Timberlake is not allowed to make any physical contact with any other woman because, as I am sure I have made very clear, he is just too sexy! And when she saw him touch Aisha Wainwright, she made him apologise and swear never to do it again.