A video of Justin Bieber performing at Rolling Loud festival in California has gone viral on TikTok today after showing the crowd of festival goers chanting ‘F*ck Hailey Bieber’. Justin had surprised the crowd on stage as a guest performer for Don Toliver’s set and was encouraging the crowd to cheer for Toliver when someone shouted the obscenity, causing countless others to join in and start a ‘F*ck Hailey’ chant.
With near one million views and 111,000 likes, the video is hard to watch. In another video, recorded by someone on stage, you can see Justin is visibly uncomfortable as he walks off the stage. Neither Justin nor Hailey have commented on the incident.
Now, some are condemning the festival goers for starting the chant, questioning how intense the backlash towards Hailey has become. ICYMI, Hailey was accused of being a ‘mean girl’ after a 2018 video of her hosting Drop The Mic with Method Man resurfaced online and showed her shading Taylor Swift by making a gesture that implied she felt sick at the mention of her name. Selena Gomez then commented on the video, stating ‘So sorry, my best friend is and continues to be one of the best in the game.’
The comment reignited feud rumours between Selena and Hailey, which had recently been squashed after the pair werephotographed hugging at the Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles in October. Now, fans have begun intensely attacking Hailey in the name of anti-bullying (and defending Selena), unearthing old videos and labelling them evidence of the ‘mean girl’ narrative without any proof that they’re related to any of this, with this most recent viral TikTok the latest evidence of the Hailey Bieber backlash.
The irony is staring us right in the face. In attempting to prove that Hailey Bieber is a bully and hold her accountable for that, scores of people have begun bullying Hailey. Beyond social media hate campaigns, which are enough to impact anyone’s mental health, people have now taken the backlash offline – and that is simply not right.
Regardless of whether you think Hailey Bieber is a ‘mean girl’ or not, this reaction is completely disproportionate to what she’s accused of doing or being. In the same breath that people are posting ‘GRWM for the Chris Brown concert!!’ – a man with a rap sheet of assault charges – they’re sending death threats to a woman for making a funny face about Taylor Swift when she was 21 years old.
The backlash has gone too far, no one deserves this kind of pile-on for a few shady TikTok’s or choice comments.