Justin Bieber has had quite the number of scandals this year, from peeing in a mop bucket in a restaurant kitchen before yelling "F**k Bill Clinton!" to allegedly calling a fan a "beached whale" and memorably getting filmed sleeping by a Brazilian girl who was reportedly a prostitute after a wild house party.
All kinds of people have been blamed for enabling the singer's bad and sometimes bizarre behavior, and often his friends (including rapper Lil' Twist, who has gotten into a number of snafus himself) take the brunt of the criticism. Bieber seems to know this, and recently took to Instagram to vehemently defend them in response to a fan's comment.
After one fan wrote about his concerns that Bieber is hanging out with wrong crowd, including his team whom they see as a bad influence, the 19-year-old "Boyfriend" singer responded: "It’s not your place to judge. God put these people in my life for a reason, and just because they are African American that makes them a bad influence?? These are the people that I love and all of us are going to help make the world a better place."
While the fan never said anything explicitly about Bieber's friends and team being African-American, ever since Bieber started hanging out with Lil' Twist and co., many fans have taken issue with Bieber's core group of friends, many of whom are black, which some Bieber followers feel has been thinly veiled racism.
Click here to see the comment one of Bieber's followers on Instagram left that the singer responded to.
