Many moons ago, in 2010, a pubescent, bowl-cutted boy with the voice of an angel set foot in on the shores of Sydney. There were riots on the street.
Duh, it was obviously Justin Bieber.
Remember? He visited to perform on Channel 7‘s ‘Sunrise’ out the front of the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney‘s Circular Quay.
But what we didn’t know is that Bieber‘s long-time manager Scooter Braun has been harbouring a 6-year-long grudge against ‘Sunrise‘ because of the event.
In a new documentary called ‘Bodyguards: Secret Lives from the Watchtower’, Braun explains that Bieber’s safety was at stake during his Sydney trip, and it was all because ‘Sunrise’ didn’t listen to Braun and his team’s warnings.
In the doco, the manager says:
“I think we started realising we needed security when thousands of people started showing up at radio stations.Then we went to Australia, and we told the Australians at this Sunrise TV show that we were going to need more security, and they didn’t believe us, and then the kids rioted the streets.”
On that fateful day in 2010, fans started camping out the night before. By the morning, the piercingly loud victims of Bieber Fever™ has grown to a whopping horde of 5000.
The show was subsequently cancelled.
However, it was then announced that he’d be performing in the 7 studios in Martin Place, and nearly all of the 5k tweens ran dangerously across the busy traffic of the Sydney CBD just to they could catch a glimpse of the Biebs through the window.
A riot squad was called and police had to wear earplugs or cover their ears, because they couldn’t hear anything through the deafening sound of 5000 thirteen-year-olds’ falsetto squealing.
So yeah – Scooter probably has a right to be a bit peeved.
But the producer of ‘Sunrise‘ at the time, Adam Boland, has admitted to the mistake, telling News Limited:
“He’s probably right — but I’m not sure any level of security could have prevented pre-teen girls from collapsing in the street merely at the thought of their idol sleeping at a hotel around the corner.We had done big concerts almost every week for years and had never seen anything like it. It was a freak event that even scared the riot squad. Bieber was still on the rise at the time so we underestimated his fan base. It was a mistake we only made once.”
Fair, tbh. Who honestly could’ve guessed that it was gonna play out like that?
He’s appeared on ‘Sunrise’ since, so hopefully all is cool now? Chill, Scootz.
Source: News Ltd.
Photo: Graham Denholm / Getty.
