Ellen DeGeneres often brings out the best in people, and the daytime talk show host seems to have had a wonderful effect on pop music’s budding bad boy Justin Bieber, who has apologized for acting “arrogant or conceited” for “the past year and a half.”
“It’s been a minute since I’ve been in a public appearance and I didn’t want to come off arrogant or conceited – or basically how I’ve been acting the past year or a year and a half,” the 20-year-old singer said in a heartfelt video following his interview with DeGeneres. “I’m not who I was pretending to be. And why I say pretending is often we pretend to be something we’re not as a cover-up of what we’re truly feeling inside, and there was a lot of feelings going on in there.”
Bieber’s long list of personal struggles in the last year, alone, have included an assault and dangerous driving charge while ATV riding, pissing off actor Orlando Bloom, egging his neighbors house, pissing off Seth Rogen, allegedly being verbally abusive to a female flight attendant, charged with assaulting a limo driver and a DUI arrest while drag racing in Miami.
2013 wasn’t much better, either, but it appears Bieber may be making a concentrated effort to clean up his image.
“Just being young, and growing up in this business is hard. Growing up, in general, is hard,” Bieber said. “I really want people to know how much I care, how much I care about people, and how I’m not that person that people say I don’t give a f–k. I’m not that kid.”
Bieber will atone for his sins soon during a Comedy Central Roast, at which top stand-up comedians will likely not hold back when picking on him for all of his “arrogant” behavior, and maybe even making this video.