Justin Bieber performs in Lisbon on March 11, 2013
Baby, baby, baby, oh …
During a brief stopover on his European tour on Friday, teen pop sensation Justin Bieber visited the Anne Frank House, the Amsterdam museum dedicated to preserving the memory of the young holocaust victim who chronicled her ordeal hiding from the Nazis during World War II in The Diary of a Young Girl. Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 at the age of 15. According to the Anne Frank House’s Facebook page, like many visitors to the museum, the pop star left a message in the guest book, writing:
Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.
For those who are not members of the Justin Bieber fan club, a “belieber” is someone who is. The cringe-worthy comment has caused an uproar on the museum’s Facebook page, with well over 1,300 people commenting on the post thus far with reactions ranging from “vile” to “shocking” to calling the multiplatinum selling artist a “shallow doofus.”
(MORE: Justin Bieber’s Pet Monkey Quarantined in Germany)
The controversy quickly spread to Twitter, where the story has resulted in some funny, profane and poignant tweets:
While it’s easy to poke fun at the megastar’s public fumbles, it’s hard not to agree with actor and writer Simon Pegg when he points out that few of us would have fared well in the spotlight at the age of 19:
Museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart defended the young star to the BBC, saying: “He’s 19. It’s a crazy life he’s living, he didn’t mean bad … and also it’s nice that he made the effort; he didn’t have to come.”
Bieber is scheduled to play three tour dates in Oslo this week as his European tour continues.