Justin Bieber can only go down from here. And by down, we mean, in the fiery depths of TMZ, where no pop star is safe from any racist utterance of the n-word five years ago in a song.
Never fear. Bieber was dipped in water last week, in a bathtub in a Manhattan church bathroom. Let’s just hope the whole thing was sanitary.
Consider this a sort of spiritual dunk tank. More importantly, consider him baptized!
But come on, racist? Even Alfonso Ribeiro (who played Carlton Banks, Will Smith’s brother on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) said he wasn’t racist this weekend on E!. He said The Biebs came up in the business in the coddling hands of Usher and other black role models. So, no, he’s not racist. Carlton may dance like a fool, but he is black and can easily be viewed as an authority on Bieber’s alleged racism.
Bieber was 14 when he sang an apparently racist version of of his song, “One Less Lonely Girl.” Instead of “girl” he used the n-word. No matter how he meant it, you can see how that might not go over so well five years later.
As TMZ previously reported, a man who had the videos of Bieber being a teenage racist wanted a million in kickbacks. Instead of giving in, Bieber released the video himself and apologized. Weirdly, TMZ says Bieber couldn’t get the dunking done in a church because every time he tried, his cover was blown.
But over the weekend the New York Post reported that the baptism indeed took place at Hillsong Church, where a friend performed the cleansing, soulful ritual.
Just a hint: his cover will ALWAYS be blown.