It’s not been a good stretch of days, weeks or even months for Justin Bieber. The once-child pop star continues to make contentious headlines, but this time, his fans stand by his side, blaming the paparazzi for getting in his business.

The “Baby” hit-maker will celebrate his first Father’s Day this weekend since the birth of his and Hailey Bieber’s son, Jack Blues, in late August 2024. Amid enjoying the dad life, Justin ended up butting heads with the paparazzi in an expletive-laden confrontation outside Soho House Malibu in California on Thursday night.

Justin Bieber lashes out at prying paparazzi

Holding out his arm over his face, Bieber began the screaming match by demanding the photogs to “get out of my f***ing face!” The heated exchange went on for 11 minutes as the pop star urged the paparazzi to leave him alone. Even his security team tried all to intercept the shutterbugs, asking them to move away from the singer’s car. However, the reporters continued filming him. During his outburst, JB shouted at the those smothering him to stop asking “how it’s going.”

At one point, the paps asked the 31-year-old Canada-born crooner if fears of deportation had clouded his mind amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He did all he could to firmly establish that he wasn’t afraid to set boundaries, as he told the paps that they were on private property. “I’m a real man with a real family,” he asserted while demanding the people to stop asking him questions.

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“Cause I’m not to be f—ked with by any of you,” he said. “Stop that s–t. You don’t get to talk to me today.” Despite the suggestion that the paparazzi were his “friends,” he said that they “don’t get to ask [him] questions.” While trying to reason with them, he added, “You just don’t … We’re not buddies.”

“I’m a father. I’m a dad, and you guys are on private property in front of my car,” he told the prying cameramen. And yet, the unruly photographers continued to taunt him, with one even wishing him a happy early Father’s Day. “I don’t know you. You don’t go to people you don’t know and say s–t out of nowhere with a camera in their face,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I’m a celebrity or not. It doesn’t matter if I’m a public figure.”

The shutterbugs didn’t stop there. Answering back, they noted that they were actually on the public sidewalk and could question him all they wanted. At that point, Bieber burst out about how his comments would be taken out of context. “You’ll take this video out of context like you always do,” he continued reiterating himself.

Admitting to be at his wit’s end, Justin noted that he was only demanding respect. “You confuse my anger with disrespect. It’s anger because you’re disrespecting me. You don’t get to disrespect me and get away with it,” he added. “You don’t get to force questions in people’s face and take videos out of context and use it against people. That’s mean … It’s mean to provoke people.”

As he lashed out at them, he highlighted that their jobs were “at the expense of another human.”

“I love my evenings, I love my wife, I love my family and you provoke me and it’s sad,” he went on. “You’re not getting it. It’s not clocking to you … I don’t give a f—k if you’re on the sidewalk. I’m a human f–king being, you’re standing around my car, at the beach! You know what I’m saying? You don’t think I’m a real f–king guy, do you?”

Conspiracy theory emerges: Someone paying to make Justin Bieber look bad

The “Peaches” singer even weighed in on the possibility of someone paying the paparazzi to provoke him and questioned them about it to no avail. This week’s public incident took the cake in prolonged concerns about Bieber’s health and other worries. Justin and Hailey’s marriage has long been in hot water, with many insisting on there being trouble in paradise. His cryptic social media activity, including updates on his drug use making it to Instagram have continued troubling his fans.

Their worries have now been trumped by their long-stretched-out questions addressed to Bieber’s former mentor, Scooter Braun. Coming to Justin’s defence on social media after the California confrontation, his fans hurled hefty accusations at the controversial music mogul, who is now HYBE America’s CEO.

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Fans defend pop star, drag Scooter Braun

“I’m sick to my stomach that Justin Bieber is constantly portrayed as horrible things and he has to defend himself time and time again against these vultures that try to ruin his reputation and who he is,” someone tweeted on X.

Another wrote online, “The way paparazzi treat Justin Bieber is insane. He knew they would take things out of context and they go ahead and do exactly that as usual… just crazy to watch fr,” while sharing a recently posted YouTube video titled as “Justin Bieber Explodes on Paparazzi In Malibu Amid Hailey Baldwin Marriage Struggles.”

The Fame Vault, presumably a fan-led gossip page on the microblogging platform, fanned the allegations that Scooter Braun “is funding a smear campaign” against JB. They alluded to his questions addressed to the paps: “Who is paying you?,” suggesting that the pop artist is well aware of “targetted efforts to provoke and discredit him.”

Braun, who’s famously been entangled in a music war with Taylor Swift as well, is said to have discovered Bieber in 2008. He remained his manager as part of a decades-long partnership until their working relationship officially broke up in 2023.

Just days ago, Scooter admitted to his relationship with Justin not being the same as it was on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast.

“We worked together for so long and we had such extreme success, and I think you get to a point as a man where you want to show the world you can do it on your own,” he said. “And I completely respect that. I think at this point, that’s what he’s doing. Myself and everyone from the old team is rooting for him.” Although he defined himself as a “cheerleader from the side,” Scooter and Bieber have long been embroiled in rumours about financial tensions.

Some JB fans asked Braun to “leave him alone” on X despite the unconfirmed status of the alleged smear campaign. Others shrugged off the controversial theory, claiming “the agencies ask provocative questions bc they know a reaction will drive up a higher price tag for the tabloids.”