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Justin Bieber walks off stage after fans hinder urgent cleaning work

By | Published on Monday 2 November 2015

Justin Bieber

Having recently devoted his life to becoming the world’s nicest person, last week Justin Bieber showed fans what would happen if they did not follow his lead. The singer walked off stage after performing just one song when he was hindered from carrying out some urgent cleaning work.

Bieber was performing in Oslo in front of a small audience for a TV recording, and after his opening song noticed that some water had been spilled at the front of the stage. Concerned that someone might slip and fall on it – even though it appeared to be on a part of the stage where no one would be likely to stand – he dutifully went to clear it up.

Because that’s just the kind of thing you expect when you show up to see a popstar perform. Well, it is if you go to see the world’s greatest guy on stage. Sure, he has a stage crew on hand who could handle this kind of thing, but why put them out? Let them relax backstage I say, and let the ultimate nice guy handle the situation himself.

Clearly expecting his fans to wait quietly why he got this important job done, he wandered to the front of the stage. But when he got there, he found that pushing a towel around with his toes put his leg within the reach of fans in the front row. With such a prize up on offer, fans forgot the teachings of their leader and instead started grabbing for his trousers.

“Hey, no, what are you doing”, shouted Bieber. “Hey, hey! No. Stop it”.

The fans did not stop it.

“Come on. I said stop it”, he added, confirming what he had indeed just said. “Come on. Guys. Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes!” Shouted one lone fan.

“OK, I’m trying to wipe to floor”, he explained. “Give me a second”.

A second passed. And then Bieber announced, “Guys, I’m done. I’m not doing the show” and walked off stage.

Fans were left in… I don’t know, I guess shock. Actually, from this video it doesn’t seem like there was much reaction at all. Some laughter, a bit of light confusion. Maybe some quiet reflection on the fact that, had they been as nice as Bieber, who was just trying to clean up some spilled water, they would still be watching him perform a selection of his hits. Or at least watching him polish a mic stand and Shake n Vac the stage.

It also might be said that, given how unnecessary the clean-up job was, the inevitability of fans grabbing at him if he got that close to them, and the speed with which he made his decision to leave, Bieber had simply been looking for an excuse to cancel the show. But that wouldn’t be very nice, so can’t possibly be the case. Anyway, he explained it all in a statement on Instagram later (because that is the nicest thing to do in this situation).

“Sadly it’s been a rough week for me, long days no sleep, while having to be ‘on’, as they would say, for cameras fans etc”, he wrote. “In no way did I mean to come across mean, but chose to end the show as the people in the front row would not listen. Hopefully people will understand where I am coming from”.

He didn’t want to come across as mean, guys. Perhaps he was rash to expect people to realise that greatness means occasional mop-ups. Still, this won’t stop him from becoming an even better man.

“I don’t always handle things the right way” he went on. “But I’m human and I’m working on getting better at responding not reacting. Unfortunately people were affected by this, as am I. For the people in the back I am so sorry and for anyone I may have disappointed I’m sorry. Sorry for wasting the TV people’s time, I’ll be sure to make it up to you next time on tour”.

Oh, I’m sure the TV people don’t mind. It probably wasn’t that expensive and time consuming to set up a bespoke record. It’ll all be fine. And he’ll make it up to them on his next tour. Which might be a hollow and meaningless statement when other popstars say it, but not when Justin Bieber proclaims it. Nothing he says or does is hollow and empty. I think we can all learn a lot from him and from this moment of dryness.



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