Justin Bieber: 'I'm Not Who I Was Pretending to Be'
It seems as Justin Bieber has turned over a new leaf and is shaking his bad boy image. The singer has apologized for his recent patterns of reckless behavior in an online video.
In the clip posted to his Facebook page, the "Boyfriend" singer explains that his headline-making actions were all a result of his youth and the hardships that come with growing up in the spotlight. He even goes as far as to say that the image he was publicly portraying was not a representation of who who he really is.
"I'm not who I was pretending to be," he said. "Why I say I was 'pretending' is [often] we pretend to be something we're not as a cover up of what we're truly feeling inside. And there were a lot of feelings going on in there. Just being young and growing up in this business is hard. Just growing up in general is hard."
Later on in the video, Bieber reiterated that he is ready to change his ways and no longer wants to be the kind of person who disregards others' feelings: "Although what's happened in the past has happened, I just want to make the best impression on people and be kind and loving and gentle and soft," he said. "And although people can call me a 'softie,' that's how my mom raised me."
In recent years, Bieber has arguably become known as music's latest bad boy. Due to his outlandish acts, including abandoning a monkey in Germany, attacking the paparazzi, publicly urinating in a restaurant mop bucket and egging his neighbor's house, the pop star's reputation quickly became tarnished.
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(Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)