February 1st, 2004 (after the game)
The world waits for some kind of post-game response from Jackson, but the singer immediately flew out of Houston following her performance and before the Super Bowl even ended. Jackson’s spokesperson calls the reveal “was a malfunction of the wardrobe; it was not intentional. . . [Timberlake] was supposed to pull away the bustier and leave the red-lace bra,” which was visibly in Timberlake’s hand following the pull. Jackson also admits that neither MTV nor CBS had any role or previous knowledge in the incident, saying Timberlake’s ripping of the wardrobe was a late addition during their final rehearsal.
February 8th, 2004
Just days after the Super Bowl, it’s reported that over 200,000 viewers had contacted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to complain about Jackson’s performance. Court documents later revealed that over 540,000 people filed complaints with the FCC about the incident, although that number was inflated by conservative and watchdog groups mass-calling the commission. FCC Chairman Michael Powell calls Jackson’s nip slip “a classless, crass, and deplorable stunt” and promises to take further action.
Later in February 2004
The NFL, upset that their Super Bowl was overshadowed by a halftime performance, respond immediately. “We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced halftime show,” NFL executive vice president Joe Browne said at the time. “They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the content of the show. It’s unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime.” CBS and MTV’s parent company Viacom, angered that an unannounced addition to the Super Bowl performance has now cost them all future halftime shows, hits back at Jackson by essentially blacklisting her, keeping her music videos off their properties MTV, VH1, and radio stations under their umbrella. The blacklist spreads to include non-Viacom media entities as well.
Every corner of television has an opinion about Nipplegate, but none do it as hilariously as David Letterman. The Late Show host relishes the opportunity to exacerbate his employer CBS’ red-faced moment, devoting a week’s worth of opening monologues and Top Ten lists to the infamous 9/16ths of a second. Janet – wearing a revealing red dress – finally visits Letterman’s show on March 29th, 2004. Despite telling him “I don’t want to revisit” the Super Bowl incident, Letterman asks a barrage of Nipplegate questions, as well as “How’s Tito?”