Justin Timberlake began his career with Disney. Now the smooth-talking boy band idol is going it alone - with style, writes Simon Hattenstone.

Justin Timberlake disappears into the red sofa. He's wearing a red towelling tracksuit. Great colour co-ordination, I say. "Yeah, I thought it was funny." He shifts around, ill at ease. We are at London Weekend Television's studios, where he is appearing on a Saturday-night show. "I feel kind of uncomfy here. I think I'm going to sit over here, so I don't match." He leaps out of the settee and into another chair. His movement is easy and graceful.

After years of huge, formulaic success as part of the world's biggest-selling boy band, 'N Sync, and years of being known primarily as Britney Spears's boyfriend - even after the event - he has recently emerged as a considerable solo talent. He dances as well as Michael Jackson used to, writes his own songs, and his chart-topping album Justified packs in a lifetime's classy influences. It's derivative, but good derivative. I ask him why he called it Justified. "I named it for myself. I guess it was just a sense of reckoning for myself. It was so different from what people would expect me to do, so everything about the album has justification for me."

His watch is dazzling. Huge, compasslike, stuffed with jewels. It's about as bling-bling as you can get. Blimey, I say, mouth wide open, real diamonds? "Yeah," he says. "It was a gift." I tell him the closest thing I've seen to it is a watch worn by Jimmy Saville, which he said was worth more than €150,000. Timberlake looks blank. I don't think he's heard of Jimmy Saville. How much is it worth? "I have no idea, to be honest."

His diamond earrings are lovely, much more modest, very David Beckham. He smiles. "Yeah, I think that's why I like Man United. Maybe he's my long-lost brother."

Does he enjoy being able to indulge himself like this? Actually, he says, the best thing about the money is that he can treat his parents after they've supported him for two decades. His mum manages him, his stepdad is a banker. His upbringing in Memphis, Tennessee, he says, was very comfortable, very middle class - decent school, good grades, loads of love.

What has he bought for his mum? "Ah, man!" He doesn't know where to start. "A Harley. Her and my dad. We have about seven now. They have two that they keep at their home in Memphis, and I have two that I'm keeping at my home in LA, and we have three in the house in Orlando."

There's nothing he loves more, he says, than cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway, not too fast, not too slow, drinking in the fresh air and freedom. "That's what the Harley represents, isn't it? Freedom. And in the past year I think it's been the underlying theme in my life - freedom and transition." In what way? "I've moved into a new house, become a bachelor, started a solo career." But only the other day I read he was back with Britney. "No, I'm not with anybody right now. I'm single. It doesn't mean I'm not dating . . . I'm new to the whole dating thing. It's very weird. But I'm single, I don't want a girlfriend." He says he has spent so long in lengthy relationships - four years with Britney - that he is relishing his independence.

I tell him his influences come out loud and clear - a nod to Off the Wall Michael Jackson, a wink to Sign of the Times Prince, a wave to Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life. "Exactly," he says. "These are just the artists who inspire me. And Marvin Gaye. And Al Green." He is mainly influenced by soul music? "Yeah," he says, and stops. Well, maybe not. "I think there are some songs that you'll hear the harmonies and it's more reminiscent of the Bee Gees." He breaks into song.

"Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, no time to talk . . ." He does a cracking Barry Gibb falsetto. "And there's a little bit of Queen as well."

Oh, I say, I must have missed that. He clicks his fingers and segues into a semi-rap.

"So you pass to the left, and you sail to the right. Daaah! You know how Freddie used to do that. He was baaaaaaad! He was a baaaaaad mama jama." Pardon? "Have you never heard that song? She's a Bad Mama Jama." His sense of pop history is impressive. "That was before your time!" If he's trying to smooth-talk me, it's working.

Timberlake, who has just turned 22, has been in the music industry for more than 10 years. At 12, he met Britney Spears when they were both Mouseketeers on Disney's Mickey Mouse Club. Can he remember a time when he was not performing? "Sure, in the middle I was not performing," he says. "I had a good year and a half to be a snotty-nosed kid right after the Mickey Mouse Club ended. I was at home from 13 to the summer after, when I was 14 and a half."

How snotty-nosed was he? "Ah, yeah," he says a tad unconvincingly, "we got caught with alcohol and smoking and doing whatever snotty-nosed kids do. We'd get caught and make someone else get in trouble for it."

He tells me he always got As at school. "I once got a B in seventh grade. I was mad. I was swelled up. I couldn't believe it." Is there anything he's bad at? "Heh! Come on man!" he protests. "You know what I'm really crap at? Forgiveness. Because my perfectionism in my craft sometimes carries over into all areas of my life."

Ultimately, he says, however able he is in other fields, music was the only thing that felt natural. So what was it like to be stuffed with talent yet always be defined as Britney's boyfriend? "It's kind of a moot point now, isn't it?" Didn't it annoy him? "Well, it won't do me any good to get upset about that."

Did their relationship help establish his identity in the first place? "Honestly, I think this album has established my identity. I think this was my coming-out party." He giggles. "Honestly, are you taking that and running with it? Be careful!" Didn't he find it strange having his virginity publicly debated? (Britney famously declared herself a virgin, so people reckoned, in the best of all worlds, that he was also one by association.) "I find it funny. I find it humorous. I take what I do seriously, but I don't take myself too seriously. I guess something that has been good for me is seeing one of my idols go completely mad."

He pauses. "We see that the business has consumed a lot of people from Michael's generation, including Michael." Michael Jackson? "Yeah. Don't you think the whole thing that surrounds him is weird?" I say I find the whole pop business terrifying and sickening. "Yeah, it's the most cut-throat business there is, besides law." No, it's weirder than law, I say - law doesn't take young kids and sexualise them for the delectation of the market. "I don't really feel I was ever sexualised."

I tell him I'm thinking of Britney, the way she was created as a sex-kitten schoolgirl, and now, at 21, there is talk of burn-out.

"Yeah. Look at how much pressure's been put on her. People are fickle." How does he survive in such a world? "How you survive is, you don't buy into it. You wake up, you look in the mirror and you say, 'I love you, but you're a funny-ass, ugly dude.' And you make a record for yourself. You say, 'What do I want to hear myself do?' and you hope everybody gravitates towards it. And that's the most rewarding thing about this album, and that's why I feel this is justified, because it's been a long time coming and I did it my way."

I tell him I have some nosy questions to ask him. "Sure," he says, "You ready for transparent answers?" He sits up and prepares himself.

Is the single Cry Me a River about Britney? "Not necessarily. The video or the song? The song was inspired by the rhythm, and the song was inspired by the way I felt. Take that and interpret it whichever way you want. The video was brought to me by the director." That is the most evasive answer I've heard in my life, I say. Well done. "Thank you. Thank you. Youshould see me actually tap-dance."

Is it true that Janet Jackson had him just for his body? "Phbbbrrrhhh," he says non-commitally. "You should ask her. I don't know. Did you ever consider that it was vice versa?" Clever, I say. So there is some truth in it? "I don't know, I wouldn't be a gentleman, would I . . ." But they had a fling? "Didn't you just ask me the same question, only reworded?" Yes, absolutely, I say.

"Yeah, you did! That's all right. I am good friends with Janet, and I think she's a lovely person and incredibly talented and absolutely beautiful, and if I did, how lucky would I be?" Very lucky? "Yes." And would you say you were lucky? "I would say in life that I was lucky." More gentlemanly evasion.

So what about Christina Aguilera, another star he has been rumoured to be dating? "Yes" - dramatic pause - "we might be touring together. Hahaha!" And have they ever toured in the biblical sense? "Erm, no. No we haven't. She's looking kind of hot these days, though." He's almost whispering. "She does look very hot, doesn't she? She's not calling it wrong - she does look dirty."

Who would Timberlake's mum prefer him to bring home? "My mum doesn't care. She just wants me to be happy." And what makes him happiest in life? "I enjoy music, man. It really does make me happy. And it's never let me down. And my mom makes me happy. When she's happy, it makes me happy."

What makes him most unhappy? "Racism," he says instantly. "I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, the city where Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, and there are still some places that are bad. Y'know, it's sad."

We talk about the future: more solo stuff, maybe another album with 'N Sync, movies, living quietly in LA. Is there anything he's desperate to do? "I mean, maybe it's pretentious to say so, but I really do think I could achieve anything." He looks at me, slightly embarrassed. "Do you think that's pretentious?"

Justified is out on Jive

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