PA/@justinbieber/Instagram‘You gotta go and get angry at all of my honesty / You know I try but I don’t do too well with apologies.
‘I hope I don’t run out of time, could someone call a referee? ‘Cause I just need one more shot at forgiveness / I know you know that I made those mistakes maybe once or twice / By once or twice I mean maybe a couple hundred times.
‘So let me, oh let me redeem, oh redeem, oh redeem myself tonight / ‘Cause I just need one more shot at second chances.
‘Yeah, is it too late now to say sorry? ‘Cause I’m missing more than just your body / Is it too late now to say sorry? Yeah I know that I let you down / Is it too late to say I’m sorry now?’
Not my words of course, but those of pre-eminent apologist Justin Bieber and his seminal single Sorry. They capture so much, yet absolutely nothing at the same time.
His lyrics seem more appropriate now than ever though, as the 25-year-old pop star has come under heavy criticism from some people after he posted a series of photos on social media as part of an April Fools prank.
Check them out:
@justinbieber/InstagramThe photos in question were firstly of an ultrasound scan, followed by a picture of his wife Hailey Baldwin in what looked very much like a hospital room having a checkup.
With her stomach exposed, it’s a very convincing pregnancy photo, especially as Justin captioned it ‘If U thought it was April fools’.
Even Ellen DeGeneres commented: ‘@JustinBieber if you’re April Fooling me, so you help’.
justinbieber/InstagramThankfully, J-Biebs cleared it up for us all with a weirdly Photoshopped picture of a puppy in an ultrasound scan.
He captioned it: ‘Wait omg is that a,,, APRIL FOOLS’.
@justinbieber/InstagramNot everyone took too kindly to the Biebs’ prank though, and pretty soon the backlash was flowing.
One person wrote:
Justin Bieber lying about Hailey being pregnant is beyond disrespectful. 1 in 4 women suffer from infertility, miscarriages, still born babies.
How fucking disrespectful, April fools or not, fake pregnancy announcements are fucking disgusting. Are we still doing this in 2019?
Justin Bieber lying about Hailey being pregnant is beyond disrespectful. 1 in 4 women suffer from infertility, miscarriages, still born babies. How fucking disrespectful, April fools or not, fake pregnancy announcements are fucking disgusting. Are we still doing this in 2019?
— kaitlyn (@sowrongitsjack) April 2, 2019
Justin Bieber joking about Hayley being pregnant is soooooo insensitive considering there’s so many women out there that cannot get pregnant or have lost children
— Amber Penny (@amberrpennyy) April 1, 2019
It’s absolutely sickening that Justin bieber can sit and make an April fools joke about Hailey being pregnant and not get one bit of grief because he’s famous? People commenting “ genuis “ just makes it even worse🤮🤮
— Leah (@leahirwinx) April 1, 2019
Others were on JB’s side though:
Of course people are mad at Justin Bieber and his wife Hailey for pranking his fans with a pregnancy post for April Fools, it’s one of the top 5 jokes from this day, yall are so damn sensitive for no reason smh [sic]
Of course people are mad at Justin Bieber and his wife Hailey for pranking his fans with a pregnancy post for April Fools, it’s one of the top 5 jokes from this day, yall are so damn sensitive for no reason smh 🤦🏾♂️
— carlos💯 (@danknowlesss) April 1, 2019
so wait lemme get this right… y‘all can joke daily about justin bieber‘s depression, mental health, anxiety, past issues, looks etc. but once he does an april fool about pregnancy y‘all suddenly get all sensitive and woke? nah i‘m out of here y‘all are literally TRASH bye
— 𝐚𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐚 (@wifeyhails) April 1, 2019
But now, the Bieb has responded.
The Canadian pop prince took to Instagram to share with his 107+ million followers his take on the ‘prank’.
It was a pretty lengthy post, in which he signed off with a few hashtags, one #dennisthemenace and the other #prankster.
He wrote:
There’s always gonna be people offended, there’s also people who don’t take jokes very well, I am a prankster and it was APRIL FOOLS.
I didn’t at all mean to be insensitive to people who can’t have children. A lot of people I know, their first go to prank on April fools is telling their parents they are pregnant to get a big reaction.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuujW2cHfwB/
The post continued:
But I will apologize anyway and take responsibility and say sorry to people who were offended. I truly don’t want anyone to be hurt by a prank..
it’s like when I shoved cake in my little sisters face for her birthday expecting her to laugh but she cried. You sometimes just don’t know what will hurt someone’s feelings not to compare pregnancy with cake in the face but it’s just to paint the picture of not knowing what will offend.
Some might have laughed but some were offended .. I think With pranks u sometimes have to roll that dice. #prankster #dennisthemenace #sorry #truly
Check it out below:
‘And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh…’
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.