Music

Why Did Justin Bieber Thank His Fans With A Photo Of A Paul McCartney Concert? An Investigation

Bieber tweeted out a picture of a 2012 McCartney concert by accident. But why?

by Joseph Earp  18 June 2020
Justin Bieber and Paul McCartney

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I don’t know if there’s a more inexplicable popstar than Justin Bieber.

That’s not to say that he’s bad. Bieber has some interesting, if usually muddled, hits in his back catalogue, and he’s more interesting than his reputation sometimes makes him seem. He’s just so confused, forever running circles around his own narrative and back-tracking on personas.

Well, now Bieber appears to have outdone himself, taking to social media to honour eight years since his ‘Believe’ tour by posting a picture… of someone else’s concert.

See, on June 16, Justin posted a photo thanking fans for eight years of support.

Only, if you look closely at the face on those big screens over in the corner of the image, it doesn’t look like Justin. It’s very blurry, but the person in the picture appears to have long brown hair, which Justin has never had, let alone back in 2012.

I mean, just look.

Justin Bieber or Paul McCartney

Featured: Probably not Justin Bieber

In fact, more than anyone, it looks like one-time Beatles member Paul McCartney.

I mean, it looks a lot like Paul McCartney. And it’s not just me saying that. Within days of Bieber’s tweet going up, others started saying the same.

Which confused me. How could Justin Bieber confuse his own concert for someone else’s, particularly when the image is so clearly not of him?

Desperate to get to the bottom of things, I did a reverse Google image search and discovered that Justin is not the only person to have claimed the image is of Bieber. Back in April, Twitter user @festivebieber posted the same photo.

So, in fact, did pop Twitter institution PopCrave.

But despite what others have posted, a further bit of digging proved it’s definitely a photo of McCartney.

First of all, there’s this article posted to the Beatles fan site El Circulo Beatle. Titled, “Paul McCartney at the Zocalo in Mexico City. The wonderful night of a difficult day” the article uses the very image that Bieber fans — and Bieber himself — have claimed is of a Bieber concert.

Paul McCartney Justin Bieber proof

Just to confirm that El Circulo Beatle is right, I found concert footage of Paul McCartney’s 2012 Zocalo concert. In it, McCartney is wearing a pink shirt — just like the person in the photo that Bieber fans have been claiming is Bieber. And then, right at the end of the concert, you can see the image that’s been circulated as Bieber’s, albeit from a different angle: McCartney standing onstage, his face captured on the big screens, fireworks and confetti going up above him.

You can watch it here, at the two hour and 45 minute mark.

So there you have it: definitely McCartney.

But Why Did Justin Bieber Tweet A Photo of A Paul McCartney Concert?

Despite all my research, two questions remained: why did Bieber tweet out the photo in the first place? And where did the confusion first arise?

The first question is easier to answer than the second. Bieber probably saw the photo on PopCrave or a fan site, saw that it was attributed to his concert, and just posted it. He didn’t originate the error — he just continued it.

As to why the error first got made? It’s not wholly clear. Both concerts happened at Zocalo Plaza in 2012, a few months apart from each other. My guess? Someone just googled Zocalo Plaza 2012 concert, posted the photo, and voila: months of confusion.

Anyway, let’s all hang tight till the next inevitable Justin Bieber mess.

Lead image credit: Paul McCartney in Dublin, Fiona / Flickr