Justin Timberlake Says His Son 'Will Never Play Football'

As the featured halftime performer for Sunday’s Super Bowl, Justin Timberlake may have wanted to avoid sensitive subjects at a press conference on Thursday.

But that didn’t happen.

When a reporter asked if Timberlake would support his almost-3-year-old son, Silas, if he wanted to play in the NFL someday, the “Can’t Stop The Feeling!” singer answered: “He will never play football.”

The performer hemmed-and-hawed a moment before adding: “It’s kinda like that thing where my main objective is that he become a great person and if he wants to get into the arts or sports, yeah, I mean, I would fully support that.”

Timberlake didn’t explain why his son wouldn’t play football.

The NFL and others in the sport have been struggling with the long-term effects of repeated collisions. Just last week, lawmakers in New York and Illinois " target="_blank" class=" js-entry-link cet-internal-link" data-vars-item-name="proposed banning kids under 12" data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="5a748c36e4b01ce33eb24d97" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="/%3Casset-code%20id=%225a748e152d00004900943920%22%20type=%22image%22%3E%3C/asset-code%3E" data-vars-target-content-type="feed" data-vars-type="web_internal_link" data-vars-subunit-name="article_body" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="2">proposed banning kids under 12 from participating in tackle football. A 2017 Boston University study asserted that children who took up tackle football early developed more intellectual and behavioral problems later on.

And of course, there’s the elephant in the room in the game’s most elite ranks ― the alarming rate of NFL players who develop severe brain disease. Nearly 100 percent of deceased players examined in a 2017 study were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head.