How Orlando Bloom has made us Beliebers
It was easier to write about Justin Bieber when he wasn’t so endearing.
Back when he was a public menace, peeing in buckets and abandoning monkeys, you could thunderbolt a hot take with one scolding finger: Bad boy. Why are you egging mansions and getting sloshed on sizzurp and brawling with paparazzi? Why, Bad Boy? Why? But the 22-year-old in my newsfeed now, the introspective lad who brings his Purpose World Tour to town next week, is generating a new emotion. I feel sorry for Justin Bieber. Let’s walk through this pity in reverse chronological order.
On Tuesday, Bieber posts on Instagram to say he’s “done taking pictures” with fans: “It has gotten to the point that people won’t even say hi to me or recognize me as a human, I feel like a zoo animal, and I wanna be able to keep my sanity.”
On Monday, Bieber is photographed around Boston. In one shot, he crouches near a tree and offers food to a squirrel. In another, he crosses a street barefoot as a lackey follows, clutching his sneakers. The scene is part Abbey Road cover, part One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In a third, Bieber sits on a park bench and stares at his phone while wearing earbuds.
Based on his expression, he is listening to Forest Sounds: With Soft Rains & Gentle Winds.
Distancing himself from other humans? A barefoot commune with asphalt and nature that involves hand-feeding rodents? When you mix this with other recent events — getting a small cross tattooed near his left eye, looking exhausted and disoriented at events, close-cropping his hair, killing meet-and-greets with fans — we are standing in the gust of flapping red flags that warn of a nervous breakdown.
So now we pick up the reverse chronology and introduce two crucial players.
On Sunday, during her concert tour, Selena Gomez points at the crowd and asks for a handmade sign that encourages her to “Marry Justin.” She crumples it and tosses it aside with disgust.
On Saturday, during a show in Philadelphia, Bieber cries on stage.
On Friday, at the after-party for her Vegas performance, TMZ reports Gomez gets “very touchy feely” with Orlando Bloom.
Let’s now climb into our celebrity time machine and key in 2014.
That was the year Bloom threw a punch at Bieber in Ibiza. Remember how the world sided with Bloom? Remember how the conventional wisdom was the right hook was payback for Bieber allegedly getting very touchy feely with Bloom’s ex, Miranda Kerr?
Well, what if we were wrong? What if the real villain was always Bloom?
People, this is an elf we are talking about. Bloom has magical powers that apparently include romancing female singers nearly half his age. Isn’t he dating Katy Perry? Why is he “neck-nuzzling” with Gomez? If you believe the tabloids, Bieber is so distraught over this canoodling, he’s getting relationship tips from Chris Brown. That’s like getting financial advice from 50 Cent.
I never understood Bloom’s appeal, and not just because my wife once had a crush on him and dragged me to those ridiculous hobbit movies. What I still don’t get — and what I now believe Bieber has feared all along — is how and why the formerly “charming actor” is morphing into a creepy lothario, the kind of hard-partying lout we projected as Bieber’s destiny.
Yes, Bieber and Bloom have switched sides in the good-bad celebrity cosmos. Bloom is the antichrist. Bieber is the saviour. Bieber, who obviously still has feelings for Gomez, is worried about his first love. He wants to protect her from the elf. That’s why he is so depressed. That’s why he is banning selfies and weeping in public and getting religious iconography inked into his face.
He needs to be ready and focused for Round 2 with Bloom.
And that’s why I’m buying a hoodie and drop-crotch trousers and switching from vodka to sizzurp. That’s why I’m taking sides. As of today, I am a Belieber. We should all be Beliebers. Our young comrade from Stratford is trying his best to do right by the world, to be a better person. Now he deserves our support as he fights for his sanity and, with any luck, shakes off the doom-and-gloom that can only have one root cause.
You want a hot take? Justin and Selena belong together. They were too young to appreciate this when they were. They are clearly lost without each other. They will not find inner peace until they are a couple once more.
Anyone who says otherwise is either a fool or an elf.