--- title: Justin Timberlake Sings Happy Birthday to 8 Year Old Autistic Boy description: The boy, who's autistic, was sporting a Timberlake-style fedora canonical: https://time.com/3136403/justin-timberlake-leads-an-entire-stadium-in-singing-happy-birthday-to-an-8-year-old/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-18T15:51:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:31.644Z og:title: Watch Justin Timberlake Lead an Entire Stadium in Singing 'Happy Birthday' to an 8-Year-Old og:description: The boy, who is autistic, says Timberlake is his favorite singer og:url: https://time.com/3136403/justin-timberlake-leads-an-entire-stadium-in-singing-happy-birthday-to-an-8-year-old/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta20f6fb2c80668c4/69869fe6810bbbaed6c930f7/450399880.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Justin Timberlake Performs At The 02 Arena og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Justin Timberlake Lead an Entire Stadium in Singing 'Happy Birthday' to an 8-Year-Old twitter:description: The boy, who is autistic, says Timberlake is his favorite singer twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta20f6fb2c80668c4/69869fe6810bbbaed6c930f7/450399880.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Justin Timberlake Leads an Entire Stadium in Singing 'Happy Birthday' to an 8-Year-Old by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Aug 18, 2014 3:51 PM UTC  Justin Timberlake performs on stage at the 02 Arena on June 10, 2014 in London, England. Justin Timberlake performs on stage at the 02 Arena on June 10, 2014 in London, England.Dave J Hogan—Getty Images by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Aug 18, 2014 3:51 PM UTC JT superfan Julian Delian got to celebrate his eighth birthday by going to see his favorite artist perform in San Jose, Calif. Sporting a Timberlake-style fedora and bow tie, the boy was naturally very excited, and began yelling about his birthday and how excited he was to spend it at the concert. Julian’s autistic, and his mother, Marika Rosenthal Delan, was worried that his chanting might annoy the people around them, _People_ [reports](http://www.people.com/article/justin-timberlake-sings-happy-birthday-autistic-boy). Instead, they all banded together to try and get the singer’s attention — and it worked. They told him Julian was turning eight, to which he replied “Sorry about the profanity, Mom.” He then urged the entire crowd to join him in serenading Julian, and go ahead and try and watch the video above with crying. Oh, and here he is, totally pulling off that fedora: ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3136403/justin-timberlake-leads-an-entire-stadium-in-singing-happy-birthday-to-an-8-year-old/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3136403/justin-timberlake-leads-an-entire-stadium-in-singing-happy-birthday-to-an-8-year-old/"},"headline":"Justin Timberlake Leads an Entire Stadium in Singing 'Happy Birthday' to an 8-Year-Old","datePublished":"2014-08-18T15:51:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:31.644Z","description":"The boy, who's autistic, says Timberlake is his favorite singer","url":"https://time.com/3136403/justin-timberlake-leads-an-entire-stadium-in-singing-happy-birthday-to-an-8-year-old/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Autism","Music","kids","Justin Timberlake","celebrity"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta20f6fb2c80668c4/69869fe6810bbbaed6c930f7/450399880.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta20f6fb2c80668c4/69869fe6810bbbaed6c930f7/450399880.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Justin Timberlake Performs At The 02 Arena","caption":"Justin Timberlake Performs At The 02 Arena","creditText":"Dave J Hogan—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3136403/justin-timberlake-leads-an-entire-stadium-in-singing-happy-birthday-to-an-8-year-old/","name":"Justin Timberlake Leads an Entire Stadium in Singing 'Happy Birthday' to an 8-Year-Old"}}]}] ```