Hanson – good, married, wholesome boys of ’90s fame – have *sort of* apologised for likening Justin Bieber’s music to a sexually transmitted disease on Adelaide radio.
“I prefer not to get any venereal diseases. Whenever Justin Beiber gets near me or near my ears, it’s like hanging out with a koala. It’s just ear infections, they’re terrible. Chlamydia of the ear, it sucks.“
The dig made international headlines and the Hanson brother-trio were… not expecting that. During an interview with ‘Sunrise‘ this morning, host Samantha Armytage asked the boys – who are in town for their 25th-anniversary ‘Middle Of Everywhere’ tour – about the hoo-ha and look, it’s probs nice for them to be asked about anything other than a single they made 20 years ago.
“We were joking about koalas and Justin Bieber came up… not our brightest moment,” Isaac Hanson (the oldest one) said. Taylor Hanson (the hot one) added:
“This was morning radio, we were making jokes about koalas. And it was an unfortunate continuation of a joke about koalas. I will say this, I think we never meant anyone to take that seriously.”
But like, what do they actually think of Biebs’ sound?
“I think he’s clearly very talented. Oftentimes what he’s not doing on stage is what people seem to be talking about and that’s where our joke was coming from.“
It was brought up again on ‘Today‘ about an hour later.
“It’s always a little unfortunate when you’re joshing around and inside jokes go bad. We were joking about all kinds of things and the host had just brought up koalas having chlamydia and that sort of just flowed into the next joke,” said Zac Hanson. The media pretty much pinned the whole comment on Zac, but if you listen to the audio it was a combined effort.
“Not our proudest moment,” Isaac added. “And not one we thought we’d be talking about again,” said Zac.
While you mightn’t instantly draw a comparison between Biebs and Hanson, they both faced fame very early on in their lives / careers. When Sonia asked about that?
“I think being in the spotlight you have to live with the fact that sometimes you become part of pop culture for your good and bad moments, I guess and sometimes it’s a punchline – it’s OK.”
Watch it for yourself below. We’re not sure what’s better: Zac’s response or his older brothers looking on, hoping that he doesn’t fuck it up. Again.
.@hansonmusic fans remain calm, their new single “I was Born” is out now! #9Today pic.twitter.com/e6Ij8OZCYy
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) June 21, 2017
You can still snap up tickets for the remainder of Hanson’s Aussie tour – more info HERE.
Photo: Hanson, Rodin Eckenoth / Getty.
