You're a pop star who is on tour Down Under and you're maybe feeling like you woke up on the wrong side of the equator or something. You go out in public and are hounded by fans who are desperate to get a selfie with you. You're really not in the mood. Do you: a) suck it up and say cheese anyway, because it's all about the fans; b) stick to your guns and decline, but in a polite way that makes them feel less rejected; or c) rudely shoot them down and tell them they're triggering your gag reflex?
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Justin Bieber went with that last option, and it's all on tape.
The video below shows Bieber being confronted by a group of young female fans during his Purpose tour stop in Melbourne, Australia. The fans seem pretty persistent in their attempts to get a photo with the singer before he leaves in his car. They've got their iPhones in selfie position and are telling him to "come on."
The Biebs isn't having it.
"Look at your respect level," he tells one fan, pausing to take a dismissive bite of his cake pop-ice cream-whatever. "Look at you. You make me sick."
Oof. Sebah Helal, the fan in question, told Australia's Herald Sun that Bieber "wasn't in a good mood."
"When I got out of my car, I ran over to ask for a photo, and that is when he said 'Why are you invading my privacy?'" she said. "He wasn't in a good mood and was adamant that he wouldn't take a photo with me."
"My daughter was bawling her eyes out," her mother, Houda Bennaoui, added. "She was dying to meet him and then he humiliated her."
It's not the first time Bieber has scolded Beliebers. He's called crowds at his concerts "obnoxious" in the past, and announced last May that he wouldn't take photos with fans anymore.
"It has gotten to the point that people won't even recognise me as a human, I feel like a zoo animal, and I wanna be able to keep my sanity," he wrote on social media. "I realise people will be disappointed but I don't owe anybody a picture. and people who say 'but I bought ur album' know that you got my album and you got what you paid for AN ALBUM! It doesn't say in fine print whenever you see me you also get a photo."
It's no surprise, then, that he'd rebuff the fans in Australia. It is surprising that he would take such a harsh approach and launch an unnecessary personal attack. Maybe someone needs to teach him the art of saying "no" without sounding like a colossal jerk?
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