One of Justin Timberlake’s friends filmed homeless people wishing JT and Jessica Biel well with their marriage. The video sparked tons of controversy, obviously.

It’s no longer brand news that Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel have finally tied the knots, but not even a week after their ceremony there is already controversy following them. A video was released that was filmed of Justin’s friend, Justin Huchel, that features homeless people, or just people “down on their luck”, wishing the couple well with their new marriage. Take a look at the video below:

The video rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Some said that this was the rich making fun of the poor, others just think it was in bad taste as their wedding cost a rumored $6.5 million dollars. I, personally, see both sides of this. While I can understand why people found this video to be offensive, I don’t. The video shows only three people, two of which seem to be quite happy and have no problems participating in the video. I mean, they could have said ‘no’ right? What I found interesting are the two top-rated comments from this video on YouTube:

It’s pretty obvious that there are people on both sides of the offended spectrum. Was the video even made as a joke against these people, or was it made as a joke against Justin? I guess we’ll never know for sure, but I do have to say that John Lilly has a point. I feel bad that these people aren’t given a fighting chance, but I don’t look at them as ‘lower’ than me, and I doubt that a lot of people that are offended look at them as ‘lower’ either. With that said, instead of feeling bad for them, shouldn’t we be trying to help them? They are still human beings that can fight their own battles, and unless they are personally offended none of us have any right getting all butthurt about it. Sometimes I think people just like to get upset to be upset.

Just when all of this was about to blow over, TMZ caught up with one of the men, Eddie, who was featured in the video. If you click above it will direct you to TMZ’s website so you can watch the video, as embedding of their videos doesn’t seem to work. I’ll give you a second to go watch it….. …… …. …. okay, welcome back. Now is it just me, or does Eddie look reeeeeal good? Like he says, he’s all dressed up to go looking for jobs so he can turn his life around. Does this look like a guy we should feel bad for? I don’t think so. This looks like a guy who deserves a slow clap for getting up and doing something about his situation. Anyway, TMZ as usual does terrible reporting, because they immediately tell Eddie that he was used as a mean joke, which obviously makes him feel bad. Now, timeout. We don’t know anything for sure, and we don’t know that this was made as a terrible joke. So to tell him that is real messed up. He does let us all know, though, that he was paid $40 for his line, which was scripted. So do we still feel bad? Or does this make us feel even worse?

Then, ever the gentleman, Justin took to his personal website to write an open letter apologizing for the video. He called it ‘distasteful’ even though he knew that was not his friend’s intention with the video. We’ll let JT tell it in his own words:

1. I had no knowledge of its existence. I had absolutely ZERO contribution to it.
2.My friends are good people. This was clearly a lapse in judgment which I’m sure no one who is reading this is exempt from. But, I don’t believe it was made to be insensitive. More so, I think it was made as a joke on me not having that many friends attending my own wedding (which IS kind of funny if you think about it).
3. Like many silly rumors that I have been made aware of about the week: It was NOT shown at my wedding.
4. I think we can all agree that it was distasteful, even though that was not its intention

He went on to say that he was in no way defending the video, and that he agreed with the overall consensus but, “It seems that these days, misconception gets around the world before the actual truth even wakes up and gets its pants on.” He also made a point to mention that the video was NOT shown at his wedding. Which confuses me. How did it leak, who leaked it, and why? I smell something fishy…. Regardless, JT says that while he had no knowledge of this video and was not a part of it at all, he will take responsibility and holds himself accountable and will make Huchel do 100 hours of community service. I can get behind that.