14 DAY TRIAL // Sometimes, Justin Bieber is just a normal teenager, who likes to enjoy the privileges of fame by scoring court-side tickets to a Knicks game. Sometimes, people choose the oddest moments to show him that they don’t like him.
The other night, right after the premiere of his 3D film “Never Say Never,” The Biebs skipped the actual film and, when done with the red carpet ceremony, hit Madison Square Garden for the game.
As the video below will confirm and Entertainment Weekly points out, he was booed when his face showed up on the giant screen.
Other media outlets say that this was not an isolated incident: every time he was shown on screen, half of the audience cheered, while the other booed.
The first time, Justin seemed so taken aback that he removed the purple 3D glasses he still had on, presumably from when he posed on the red carpet for the aforementioned movie premiere.
The second time, he played it cool, notes EW, though that still doesn’t make it right that people booed him simply because he was there.
Commenters on the same site say that, had he been received like this after a musical performance, it would have made some sense; this way, people simply booed him because he was at the game, because he existed.
EW echoes the sentiment, saying that, no matter one’s musical tastes, one should always differentiate between that and a real human being.
“Justin Bieber went to see the New York Knicks play last night, and got booed by the crowd at Madison Square Garden after his face graced the overhead scoreboard,” EW writes.
“The TV commentators praise New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who was sitting next to Bieber, for making conversation to soothe the 16-year-old’s momentarily bruised ego. Of course, the young girl bawling feet from them, overwhelmed by merely being that close to Bieber, may also have helped,” the e-zine notes.
“Now I know the pleasure of a random ‘boo’ fest in the Garden. […] But that, to me, is different. The crowd was booing an action, not a kid’s existence. This clip made me feel for Bieber. And I hate that,” EW also says.
Check out video of the incident below – and then decide whether fans were right to boo Bieber or not.