CULTURE

Justin Bieber Would Like Everyone to Pray for Him

The singer shared a candid Instagram post hinting he’s “struggling a lot.”


Justin Bieber
James Devaney/Getty Images

If you’re reading this, please pray for Justin Bieber. Over the weekend, the singer and husband of Hailey Bieber, née Baldwin, posted an emotional Instagram post in which he alluded to “struggling a lot” and “feeling super disconnected and weird,” and asked that his followers pray for him because “ur prayers really work thanks.”

“Just wanted to keep you guys updated a little bit hopefully what I’m going through will resonate with you guys,” he wrote in the caption of the image, a black and white photo of himself praying alongside Kanye West. The photo is a cropped reproduction of an image he posted to his feed all the way back in 2016; the original depicts Bieber, West, and Puff Daddy with their arms around each other’s shoulders, eyes closed in religious ecstasy. Bieber’s hair, then blond and long, is held back by a bandanna, but it still falls in front of one eye; he wears a Tupac T-shirt under a plaid shirt and an overcoat. “Uncle puff and Yeezy giving thanks to Jesus,” Bieber captioned the original image.

In the more recent photo, the frame is zoomed in slightly, cropping Puff Daddy out of the scene. Sorry.

“I always bounce back so I’m not worried,” Bieber went on in the caption. “Just wanted to reach out and ask for your [sic] guys to pray for me. God is faithful.” (God did, after all, apparently “bless” him with Hailey as a reward for his period of abstinence.) Among those who, it seems, are helping Bieber out in what he described as “the most human season I’ve ever been in facing my stuff head on”: the producer Diplo, who commented, “Sending good energy”; Bieber’s protégée Madison Beer, who left a black heart emoji; and the singer Billie Eilish, who liked the post.

But perhaps most importantly, the Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz—with whom Bieber has played a lot of sports and for whom he has interned—wrote, “YOU GOT THIS!” Justin Bieber, you got this.