Justin Bieber: It’s about time stars put their health before profits

In an industry where shows are usually axed for “unforeseen circumstances” or “scheduling conflicts” it’s refreshingly honest to see a superstar like Justin Bieber promote self-preservation, writes Cameron Adams.

Justin Bieber has announced he is taking a break from music and touring. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Christophe Archambault

This week pop singer Justin Bieber confirmed what anyone who saw his 2017 Australian tour already knew — he was phoning it in.

“I’ve toured my whole teenage life, and early 20s,” Bieber shared on his Instagram page.

“And as you guys probably saw I was unhappy last tour and I don’t deserve that and you don’t deserve that, you pay money to come and have a lively energetic fun light concert and I was unable emotionally to give you that near the end of the tour.”

Justin Bieber, at Etihad Stadium, Melbourne in 2017, has announced he is taking time out from music to focus on his mental health. Picture: Tim Carrafa

But is it too late now to say you’re sorry, Justin? Especially with no offer of refunds, just belated realisations. Maybe he YouTubed himself and had a ‘shitebulb’ moment.

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If you had the misfortune of paying to see Biebs on that Purpose tour in Australia in March 2017 (which, indeed, was at the tail end of proceedings) you saw a pop star who looked like he’d been pushed on stage at gunpoint.

He barely spoke or smiled and at times he ‘sang’ over prerecorded vocals and didn’t even bother putting the microphone to his mouth.

Bieber radiated pure douche during that Australian trip — remember when a fan filmed him and caught him saying “you make me sick”? Nice.

Indeed, he was having such a bad time on that tour by July, 2017 he cancelled the rest of the tour, saying: “I want to be sustainable, I want my career to be sustainable, I want my mind heart and soul to be sustainable.”

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Would fans have preferred him to be honest and cancel the whole tour a year earlier and wear the major financial fall out rather than provide a social media post-mortem two years down the track?

It’s become an issue in an era where no one pays for music anyway so playing live is how an artist’s money is made — especially at Bieber level where the Purpose tour grossed over $350 million. That’s a lot of people in Bieber Inc relying him to put on a happy face — something he couldn’t even manage.

It poses the question: if your musicians really despise touring that much do you want to see them on stage going through the motions? You can ‘hatewatch’ a TV show, but who wants to cough up $150 plus to watch someone ‘hateperform’ to them?

Justin Bieber to his fans: “Baby, I be movin’ on”. Picture: AFP Photo / Robyn Beck

There is of course the argument that you’re a multi-millionaire in your early 20s getting to live your dreams, play your songs to adoring crowds around the world and life really isn’t too bad.

But every job has its drawbacks, even being a global pop superstar.

The world of music has a long history of artists self-medicating, often to deal with the drudgery and repetition of touring — something some people just aren’t cut out for.

Avicii’s True Stories documentary on Netflix is seriously depressing viewing.

It’s like watching his suicide note — he took his own life last year.

Swedish DJ Avicii died in 2018 at the age of 28 after relentless global touring. Picture: AFP Photo / Attila Kisbenedek

The DJ spends most of the film telling anyone who’d listen how much he hated the relentless DJing and travelling he was being booked to do (literally hundreds of shows each year), but Team Avicii kept telling him how much it’d cost to cancel shows so he kept on doing it to keep everyone happy — except himself.

Cue heavy drinking to cope and an Australian tour in 2013 where he ended up in hospital with pancreatitis. He was shoved back on stage a few days later because the show must go on.

It’s a similar story with Amy Winehouse’s Amy documentary. At one point her actual friends hide her passport so she could go to rehab not America and promote her music. However business was put in front of her personal life, the passport was reclaimed, she broke America and we all know how that worked out.

Asif Kapadia’s documentary Amy showed how pressure to perform took its toll on Amy Winehouse. Picture: Entertainment One Films

These are extreme cases. There are countless musicians who love playing live, it’s why they do this. And make no mistake, when you’re at superstar level, you’re hardly roughing it.

We’ve now seen singers like Bieber and his ex Selena Gomez pulled shows and explained directly to their fans it was due to mental health reasons.

In an industry where shows are usually axed for “unforeseen circumstances” or “scheduling conflicts” it’s refreshingly honest and promotes self-preservation, especially for their younger fans.

But when you’ve got an artist at the top of their game, like Justin Bieber, telling his 100 million followers on Instagram he’s wasn’t having fun doing his night job, it must set off some alarm bells in Bieber HQ. Let’s hope he can turn it around and give his fans a tour where he actually wants to be there as much as they do.

Cameron Adams is a News Corp national music writer. @cameron_adams