It’s been almost two weeks since Justin Bieber acted like a petulant teenager with no concept of reality or how his actions affect people around him, so according to TMZ, Justin decided to remind everyone of how hard he’ll inevitably crash and burn by allegedly stealing a memory card from a photographer. Yes, how dare someone take pictures of a famous person while they’re out in public! That’s never happened before, right?
The incident occurred outside The Hit Factory recording studio at around 4 AM … just hours before Bieber’s security guards allegedly choked another photographer, and tried to jack his camera equipment as well. On the tape, you hear Justin scream to his bodyguards, “Get that f***ing camera out of here!” (time code: 1:08) You can hear the photog plead with Justin, who responds like a benevolent prince, “Alright, alright. I’m gonna give you your camera back. I’m gonna take your SIM card though.” The photog begs and pleads to let him keep his memory card — even offering to delete the photos he took — but Bieber is unmoved. Authorities are currently investigating the altercation that took place later in the day — but law enforcement tells us, police have no record of the earlier incident because it wasn’t reported.
Here’s the thing: it’s not like the paparazzi is some newfangled invention that no one has ever heard about. They’ve been around for friggin’ decades, and they’re a well-known trade-off to being famous: You get rich and beloved for minimal work, but the downside is people want to take pictures of you. It happens. What’s confusing is that at no point did anyone sit Justin down and go “listen kid, you want to make pop music for impressionably stupid teens? Good for you. Just ignore the paparazzi and keep a low-profile and you’ll be fine.” I’m assuming that conversation went more like “YOU ARE INFALLIBLE. EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET YOU. CAMERAS WILL STEAL YOUR SOUL. CRUSH THE PAPARAZZI RRAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!” Seriously, it would explain a lot.