Jessica Biel Shares Rare Insight on Parenting With Justin Timberlake

Jessica Biel is getting candid about juggling her responsibilities as a working mom. In InStyle‘s Now cover interview, the 7th Heaven alum opened up about parenting her two kids with Justin Timberlake as she called the *NSYNC star one of her “chosen sisters.”

Emphasizing the importance of community when raising her sons Silas, 10, and Phineas, 4, Biel got real as she opened up about the “hard” balancing act between work and motherhood. She told InStyle in the new interview published May 19, “I don’t do it very well all the time.”

“It really takes a village to raise any kid, let alone in a wild business like this where parents are traveling for long times for work,” she said, crediting her “chosen sisters” including “best friend” Timberlake for giving her a helping hand through the tough times. “All of them together have gotten me through my life. I don’t know how I would have survived life without them,” the star added. 

Biel revealed that she and Timberlake try to alternate picking up the slack when the other partner has other things going on—“We’re doing the same thing every other parent is doing: ‘Okay, tennis. You got the tennis? I’ll get the thing,’” she explained—but they’re both currently in the middle of a busy career season. 

“Sometimes we do a good job; we try to have one of us working full time, only one,” Biel explained. “It doesn’t always happen, because the opportunities arise and the timing is what it is. You just have to take advantage of it.”

The star opened up about filming Mattel’s Matchbox at the same time as Timberlake’s Forget Tomorrow World Tour as an example, explaining that the timing “literally couldn’t have been worse.” Biel revealed that she brought her kids with her to Europe and made it work, thanks to the help of her “incredible [travel] teachers” as well as their nanny and family members. 

The Better Sister actress also opened up about how she and Timberlake approach raising their kids out of the spotlight, calling it “a tricky balance.”

“We do really try hard not to expose them in a way that they’re not comfortable with,” she said, sharing an example from last summer when she brought Silas to the US Open tennis tournament. Considering Biel and Timberlake’s kids rarely make public appearances, the actress said she sat down with her eldest son to discuss the situation.

“My son was 9 at the time, and he’s a huge tennis fan—that’s his sport, that’s what he plays. We had this opportunity, and we talked about it. We talked about photographers. You know, ‘Are you comfortable with that?’ He can’t make these decisions on his own, but at this point, we can at least discuss what’s his opinion around it,” she said. While she admitted that she didn’t know “if it was the right decision,” they ended up having a good time. “It’s scary every time. But it’s also their life. And so it’s this really tricky, tricky thing to figure out, what’s appropriate,” she shared.