I'm a 43-year-old washed-up pop star and I am having a midlife crisis. Please help! BEL MOONEY imagines

Our brilliant advice columnist Bel Mooney has answered thousands of readers' letters over the years. But what if the rich and famous turned to her for peerless advice about their own problems?

Each week we invite Bel to look behind the headlines and ponder an imaginary celebrity dilemma that we have made up for her (tongue firmly in cheek). In turn, Bel will take the letter at face value, just as she does with all those that pour into her famous column.

She will give an honest answer – so celebrities and politicians, listen up! This week, we imagine what Justin Timberlake might write in a letter to Bel.

Justin Timberlake's mugshot sent social media into a frenzy on Tuesday after it was revealed that the singer had been arrested for driving while intoxicated

Dear Bel,

I’m 43 years old and I was once the toast of my industry, but recently I’ve been struggling to cope. I’m a freelancer in a competitive field and my much younger peers now get all the attention – I am jealous. Some people don’t even know who I am, others pretend not to recognise me when we see each other in passing.

To compound matters, I have been drinking more recently and it culminated in a seriously embarrassing incident - now I am being ridiculed by all-comers. Years ago, I lectured my ex-girlfriend about her drinking and even she is joining the mockery!

How can I get my mojo back? I desperately want to change the course of my life and save face. It’s not like I don’t have stuff going on. I still have major projects in the works and my marriage is going strong after 16 years. But I can’t escape the feeling that I am yesterday’s man. Is this a midlife crisis? Please help!

JUSTIN

Bel Mooney replies: When a celebrity waxes indignant and asks a doorman or waiter (or any other ordinary person not showing sufficient deference), ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ - that moment is at once very funny and very sad.

It’s pathetic that somebody who used to be Somebody can display such a desperate, aching need to be recognised. We’re amused and think, ‘Oh, get over yourself!’ And the sassy answer to that vain, pompous question would be, ‘No – do you?’

The trouble is, Justin, you DO know who you are – and you’re not too happy with the reality. Pictured with the rest of the teen boy band NSYNC in 1997 you were a fresh-faced picture of shining youth and health, silver jacket, earrings and all. Screaming adulation is what you came to expect – and with your solo career you got it in spades. With Britney Spears on your arm you seemed to rule the pop world, and when that romance ended you rode even higher, cashing in on that broken heart.

But now? After being pulled over by a policemen too young to recognise you (oh, the humiliation) the snaps of you in handcuffs just look…well…seedy. The police mug shot shows a 43-year-old man who is rapidly losing his looks - a haunted awareness in those eyes that the last album sales were disappointing and a fear that the last remains of superstardom might well be slipping away.

I’ve looked at all the funny posts and memes about your drink-driving – and to be honest, I don't find them funny. I read Ricky Gervais’s clever-clever tweet about sending you a bottle of vodka – and think it unnecessary and mean. I guess we should be used to the way the mob closes in to kick a man when he’s down, but it makes me queasy.

A handcuffed Justin Timberlake walks across a bridge from the police headquarters in Sag Harbor, in the Hamptons, to the nearby Justice Court on Tuesday

So now the question is – are you going to let this push you further on the downward spiral, or stand tall and face the demons? The word on the street is that you’ve been drinking in this way for some years now (an on-going midlife crisis, I'd say) but you’ll just put it down to ‘stress’ - as if that justifies anything.

The way forward is to try turning this latest humiliation into humility. Think about that. This is the time to make a public statement about drinking – and set yourself up as a dire warning to others. All those teenaged girls who screamed at you are now facing middle-age, just as you are – and probably drinking a little too much too,

especially when kids and husbands wear them out. Talk to them. Join forces with your long-suffering wife to turn this into something positive which helps people. That might turn to laughers into admirers. I hope so.

You have to understand that it’s time to step down from your tired old high horse and stop believing vast stadiums (oh, this ‘world tour’…) are the way to find out who you can be in the future. All of us have to accept change – and for somebody like you the test is to turn the ‘has been’ into a ‘will be.’ Smarten up both yourself and your music and (please listen to somebody old enough to be your Ma) for heaven’s sake, get a shave.