In an apparent “sorry, not sorry,” pop star Justin Bieber tweeted then deleted an explanation for his walking off the stage at a Manchester, England, concert last week, complaining of excessive audience noise.
“People tend to want to shut you down,” the 22-year-old Canadian singer posted in a text graphic Saturday on his verified Twitter page, according to a screen image of the tweet posted by the CBC. “What I mean by that is . . . people try to twist things, some people don’t want to listen. But I simply feel like, if I didn’t use this platform to say how I truly feel, and if I didn’t use this platform to be the man that I know I am, and speak from what’s in my heart, then I’m doing myself injustice, and I’m not doing anybody in this audience any justice.”
He continued, “There’s going to be times where I say the wrong thing, because I’m human. But I don’t pretend to be perfect and I hope to God that, you know, I don’t say the right thing all the time because if that was the case then I’d be a robot, and I’m just, I’m not a robot. There’s times when I get upset . . . times when I get angry, there’s times when I’m going to be frustrated. But I’m always going to be myself on this stage.”
After frustrated exchanges with two British concert audiences previously that week, Bieber on Oct. 23 scolded a crowd at the Manchester Arena that “the screaming during these breaks has got to stop,” adding “I want to be able to say something here when you guys are screaming—” after which his words became unintelligible under the din in several audience videos. He then left the stage before returning later.
In his tweet, which was deleted by Sunday morning, Bieber claimed “people try to twist things and say, ‘Justin’s angry at his fans. He doesn’t want his fans to scream’ that’s not at all what I was doing,” he claimed in his tweet, which was deleted by Sunday morning. “All I was simply doing was wanting people to listen; to kind of hear me out a little bit. Certain people . . . certain cities aren’t going to want to hear me out, and you know, sometimes it’s my job to say, ‘hey, I’m not going to try to force anything. I just appreciate you guys tonight, listening to me and understanding, and rocking with me. You guys are truly amazing.”
The ellipses in each case above are as Bieber wrote and do not indicate missing text.
Bieber has not subsequently commented on social media as of late Sunday afternoon.
