“I’ve done some things that might not have been the greatest.”
Justin Bieber has decided to come out of his television hiatus on January 28th to wish Ellen a happy birthday on her show. Bieber had his television debut on Ellen when he was 15 years old, and here he is five years later owing up to some of the things he’s done in the past.
Let’s just take a second to remind ourselves of what excactly he is apologizing for.
Allegations against Bieber started as early as 2010, when he was accused of assaulting a twelve year old at the laser tag arena. Clearly he doesn’t understand the one absolute truth in life— that no matter who you are or how high you aim, you will never be better at laser tag than a twelve year old boy. It just can’t be done.
The following year Bieber was pulled over while leading a three-car motorcade, which included Sean Kingston, after he cut off a highway patrol officer. The press went wild with this news, but having just gotten his license, they weren’t too harsh. Over the next few years he would be pulled over again and again for reckless driving and making dangerous turns, but by then everyone really just stopped caring.
Fame is a great thing; it gives influence and the power to spread important messages. Unfortunately for Biebs, he is a teenage boy and teenage boys tend to say stupid things. Usually people give a little more leeway, writing off any less-than-eloquent comment on his youth and inexperience. That is, until 2011 when he shared his thoughts on abortion in an interview with Rolling Stone. He says “It’s like killing a baby.” He’s a Christian and these are his beliefs. Totally cool, I respect that. But when he was asked his opinion on pregnancies caused by rape, he added, “Um, well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.” Yeah, people weren’t too happy about that.
Interestingly enough, in November of that year a fan names Mariah Yeater named Justin as the father of her three month old son. DNA tests proved that he was not actually the father, but it was still great to watch. I like to think it happened for a reason.
As college students, we understand teenage rebellion and YOLO and all that. It’s easy for us to look back and laugh at all the hilarious pranks our friend Justin has pulled, like that time he locked one of the producers of CSI in a closet and then put his fist through a cake that was on the actors’ table during his two-episode quest appearance. There’s also the time that he peed in a mop bucket in a New York restaurant yelling “F— Bill Clinton,” and the time he attacked a member of the paparazzi while leaving a mall with his then-girlfriend Selena Gomez. I’d go into more detail of all his other assault charges, but there’s too many to count and lists are tedious.
Good times, good times.
Luckily for us, he doesn’t reserve this behavior exclusively for the paparazzi; he also has a history of mistreating his fans, like that time he vomited onstage in Glendale, Arizona in September of 2012. He claims that it was because he drank milk before the performance. Okay Justin. This episode must have had a traumatizing effect on him though, because a few months later decided to show up two hours late to his show in Dubai. He was apparently over the whole concert thing and decided to play video games for those two hours instead.
While they were dating, Selena Gomez was usually the one who apologized to fans and members of the paparazzi for Justin’s behavior, which may be why he took it so badly when they split up. After their breakup, he wrote, “Recovery is an acknowledgement that in life you can’t just fall down and not get over things. You have to step up and recover. At the time, I was going through a very hard break up and when you’re going through stuff like that, you think that the world is just gonna end. Then you wake up the next day and realize that life has to go on. Recovery is that feeling you get when you start to move on and make things better for yourself, because yesterday is gone and tomorrow is here.” His road to recovery included pictures on Instagram of him mooning the camera and an instance of him banning all Selena Gomez music on the set of a photo shoot before demanding that no one speak to him. Whatever numbs the pain, kid.
Oh, and let’s not forget about that debacle at the Anne Frank House, where he wrote, “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a Belieber.”
Yes, Justin. Hopefully.
After a long and tiresome three year career of being Justin Bieber, he decided to quit music and tweeted that he is “officially retiring” from the industry. It was a sad day that twelve year old girls across the world will never forget.
So what do we do? Do we accept his apology and write it off as teenage angst, or do we just roll our eyes and mutter the word “douche” and continue in our attempts to deport him?