Justin Timberlake Regrets Creating This Iconic Restaurant's Ad Jingle

Not only is Justin Timberlake a famous singer-turned-actor, but he was involved in one of the most iconic restaurant jingles of the last few decades. Back in 2003, Timberlake was the main promoter of a McDonald's song that you'll be able to hear in your head from just these few words: "Ba-da-ba-ba-ba, I'm lovin' it!" A Timberlake song with that hook leaked online, and sources even spoke with outlets such as MTV News about the song as if it were a real single. In actuality, the fake leak was a sneaky way of getting those instantly-catchy notes stuck in the public's head, even before the company revealed that it was all an ad.

These days, Timberlake doesn't look back on that time in his life too kindly. "I regret the McDonald's deal," he later told GQ, comparing his involvement with the fast food chain to the way the Grammy Awards ratings went up whenever he performed. "It's kind of interesting," he said. "Just like the McDonald's deal, whose market share went up by 25% when I walked into those offices and changed their image, when I did the Grammys, the viewing figures went up by 25%. Hmm, funny isn't it?"

Though Justin Timberlake brought "I'm Lovin' It" to the masses, he didn't write it. According to AdWeek, an agency in Germany was the first to propose using "Ich liebe es" as a slogan — "I love it." After consulting with MTV on their new campaign, McDonald's shopped that slogan around to music producers. Eventually, producer Tom Batoy realized they had gold when he heard a backup singer vocalize those now-iconic notes: "Ba-da-ba-ba-ba!" He told the outlet, "It comes so easily through your lips."

Things get fuzzy from there. When the jingle was reworked into a song for Timberlake by The Neptunes — the producing group that includes Pharrell Williams — credit for developing the melody got contentious. The version that was eventually released featured rapping from Clipse, the duo featuring Pusha T; he now claims he was the one who developed the jingle. "It's funny that people find it so amusing now that I wrote that," he told Pitchfork. But Batoy disagreed: "Pusha T was never involved in the creation of the McDonald's jingle," he insisted.

Pusha T definitely beefed with Williams and also with McDonald's, recording a 2022 diss track in support of Arby's instead. He told Rolling Stone that he regretted not demanding more money from the McDonald's jingle, using his diss to even the score instead. "I gotta crush it," he said.

While Justin Timberlake may now regret signing on to promote McDonald's, that hasn't stopped the pop star from linking up with a bunch of other companies for sponsored gigs. He's done ads for MasterCard, Sauza 901 Tequila, and Bai, the latter of which turned into a full-on Super Bowl commercial. 

Vice President of Brand Communications Alana Radmin told Billboard that Timberlake collaborated heavily on that ad, which featured Christopher Walken. "[Justin] is a very creative guy, he has a lot of thoughts on everything from innovation to marketing content," she said. "He really adds a lot of value." 

In one of his more unusual brand partnerships, Timberlake worked with Walmart, collaborating with a certain country-pop superstar for an event at their corporate headquarters. Taylor Swift has done several acting performances over the years, but perhaps none were less convincing than her appearance onstage with Timberlake. As he pretended not to know who she was, she pretended to still be a regular person, telling a crowd of Walmart employees (via YouTube), "I don't know, I really like Walmart because my band and I love to go there ... We go in there and they have everything that we need." We have to wonder if they both regret this one.