Off the back of his triumphant headlining set at Coachella last weekend, people have been reflecting on Justin Bieber’s earlier career — including the ways he was mistreated and exploited, particularly at the height of his global fame in the mid-2010s.
So, on TikTok, fans have unearthed a 10-year-old clip from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, in which Justin fielded some rather uncomfortable questions about his body and dating life.
For some context, this specific appearance is from November 2015, which was about a month after some nude photos of Justin were published online. The pictures — in which Justin is seen entirely naked — were taken nonconsensually by paparazzi while he was walking around a private villa in Bora Bora. It wasn’t until they surfaced online that he learned that they’d been taken.
Appearing on the show to promote his Purpose album, Ellen brought up the nude photos with Justin, put one of the censored images up on the big screen in front of the audience, and asked the then-21-year-old to explain how he “did not see that there was paparazzi.”
Keeping his answers pretty short, Justin defended himself by saying that he “wasn’t really looking out” for photographers, by virtue of the fact that he was staying in a private villa. Ellen continued asking questions about how he first found out about the images, and then teased Justin about his anatomy, saying: “I’m no expert, but I heard that it was good.”
It’s worth mentioning that, prior to this TV appearance, Justin’s team took legal action to get the “unauthorized photographs” removed from the internet, rightly calling the situation “a violation of the singer’s publicity and privacy rights.”
One of the big talking points about Justin’s Bora Bora photos was that a woman could be seen sitting in the villa behind him. This was Jayde Pierce, a then-20-year-old British model with whom Justin was briefly linked in mid-2015 — just a few months before he and his now-wife, Hailey Bieber, debuted their romantic relationship.
As far as we know, Justin and Jayde’s rumored romance was never hugely serious, which is why it was incredibly awkward when Ellen persistently asked Justin who she was and whether she was his “girlfriend.”
When Justin clarified that the woman in the photo was just a “friend,” Ellen replied: “You brought a friend to Bora Bora? And you were just naked with your friend? Why can’t you say that you’re dating somebody?”
Justin, visibly mortified, asked: “Why are you putting me on the spot like this?” Before covering his face in embarrassment. “Stop, you’re making me blush, dude,” he said.
When celebrities appear on talk shows, the topics they discuss are typically approved by them or someone on their team, so it’s not like Ellen went rogue and did this maliciously. However, it’s wild to think that this was the norm back then. And it’s especially interesting when you consider reports that Justin has since cut ties with everyone that managed him at this point in his career — but perhaps that’s a different conversation.
Anyway, on TikTok, a viral clip from the 2015 interview has been viewed over 2.4 million times, prompting fans to highlight how “clearly uncomfortable” he looked during the segment about the nude photos. “My heart breaks for younger him,” someone wrote in the comments section.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Ellen has been accused of asking invasive questions, particularly about celebs’ love lives, prompting some TikTok users to ask: “How did [she] get away with this for so long?”
Times have changed! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.