Once Justin Bieber starts apologising, it seems he can’t stop. Back in January, the pop star released a video telling fans: “I’m not who I was pretending to be.” Now, Bieber has given a fresh interview to Seventeen magazine in which he admits he was “disappointed” in himself.
“I was rebelling a little bit,” he said. “I was getting cockier and cockier. I didn’t have people to check me. I looked back and I was disappointed in myself.”
At the time of his original apology, fans were unsure as to how sincere Bieber was being. In February 2015, however, the star appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show to say that he had done “a lot of things over the past few years that I’m not proud of.”
Those things may or may not have included abandoning his pet monkey in Germany, drag racing a yellow Lamborghini while under the influence, throwing eggs at his neighbours and urinating in a bucket while swearing at a picture of President Clinton. But now Bieber wants to move on from his old public image. He told Seventeen: “You have to own up to the mistakes. You have to say, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve let you down’. I always want to be honest, and let people know that those mistakes aren’t who I am. Who I am is someone who really cares about people.”
Later on in the interview, the star admitted to letting social media reactions affect his self esteem.
“For a while, I was busy looking at my Instagram likes, and if a post didn’t get a certain amount, I was like, ‘Aw, they didn’t like the photo,’” said Bieber. “But there’s always a choice. You can let Instagram or stuff on the internet affect your day, or you can choose to not be bothered by it.”
These days, Bieber says he chooses “not to be bothered” by comments on social media. Which should at least make his ability to browse theguardian.com/music somewhat easier in future.
