Concerned fans were shocked by Justin Bieber posting a series of photos, including one of his son, to Instagram.
31-year-old Bieber introduced the world to his and wife Hailey Bieber’s first child last August with a sweet social media post that read: ‘Welcome home, Jack Blues Bieber.’
Since then, the one-year-old has featured heavily in the promotion for his father’s Swag album and has become a regular fixture on both his and 28-year-old Hailey’s profiles.
But one of these posts landed the dad-of-one in hot water with fans.
Bieber uploaded a carousel to the social media platform. The images showed Bieber in various situations during what appeared to be a mountain getaway with friends.
Photos from the carousel showed Bieber carrying Jack on his shoulders outdoors, lying shirtless on a couch with his son’s tiny feet resting on his leg, and various shots of the singer with friends at what appeared to be a restaurant with an outdoor bar.
In one photo, he gazed down adoringly at his son while relaxing on a porch. In another frame, he was spotted on the same couch, in the same outfit, smoking what appeared to be a joint with a friend – though Jack was not visible in that particular image.
It appeared that both photographs had been taken on the same rural retreat, with the father-son duo also being joined by a select few members of Bieber’s friend group.
Captioned: ‘Gonna be a good summer’, the collection was quickly inundated with fans, questioning why the singer was seemingly smoking in front of his only child.
“Don’t smoke in front your kid,” one echoed. Another questioned: “Doing drugs with the baby around?”
A third penned a lengthy message, beginning: “Children are particularly vulnerable to health problems from exposure to smoke.”
They added: “Even smoke that lingers on clothes or furniture (known as thirdhand smoke) can be harmful. So…maybe consider that. You’re a parent now. Act like one.”
Someone else asked Bieber to be ‘better like [they] know [he] can be’, while a fifth commented: “Bestie, you did not just smoke in front of baby Jack.”
One Instagram user wrote: “Walk me through your photo selection process,” while another compared the post to ‘a teen dad promo from MTV.’
Many encouraged his wife, Hailey, to intervene, with some calling the behavior ‘unsafe’ and urging Justin to ‘be better.’
However, some fans came to Bieber’s defense, pointing out the timing and context of the photos.
“Guys, the picture with the baby, you can see Jack’s feet on his leg. The picture of him smoking the baby is clearly NOT there,” one supporter wrote.
Another added: “Everyone in the comment section, let’s use our brains now, Jack isn’t even pictured in the photos where he’s smoking. He didn’t smoke in front of Jack.”
“You don’t see that man smoking with his baby in NONE OF THESE PICS! y’all say anything for attention,” one follower penned in the singer’s defense.
Fans noted that the images appeared to be taken at different times, with Jack not present in the frames where Bieber was smoking.
Bieber has been candid about his various vices in the past, admitting to having a dependency on both drugs and alcohol when he was younger.
In 2019, he told Vogue how he’d previously used illicit substances as a coping mechanism.
“Drugs put a screen between me and what I was doing,” he shared. “It got pretty dark. I think there were times when my security was coming in late at night to check my pulse and see if I was still breathing.”
Last year, the ‘Peaches’ singer explained that during the height of his substance abuse, he’d wake up and ‘pop a pill’ and ‘smoke a blunt’ before even starting the day.
Recalling exactly how he turned things around, Bieber added: “I basically said to myself: ‘God, if you’re real, you get me through this season of stopping these pills and stuff, and if you do, I’ll do the rest of the work’, and then I did that, and then I was good from there.”
