Remember Justin Bieber’s DUI arrest in Miami from a while back? Justin sure wants you to remember.
He’s shared a throwback photo of his own mugshot, and his captions are fine on the surface, but might indicate an internal struggle.
His mugshot also reminds us that, for all his faults, Justin takes really good mugshots.
Over the years, Justin Bieber’s bad behavior hasn’t been a secret … at all.
Like, we’re sure that there’s stuff that we haven’t heard about.
But there’s also stuff like Justin egging his neighbors house.
And, of course, the drunk driving (and drag racing!) in Florida that led to his arrest.
Honestly, some of his antics came across like the stereotypical “bad kid” from any and every generic animated drama from the last two decades.
But Justin’s shared this throwback photo of his own mugshot, and it’s apparently not to brag about how good he looked in it.
(Though, let’s be honest, he looked great)
He captioned the photo: “#jailisnotacoolplacetobe #notfun #neveragain”
For those of you who don’t enjoy reading hashtags, that was:
“Jail is not a cool place to be. Not fun. Never again.”
For some reason, this feels like less of an after school special for his fans than a public statement about his own intentions.
Like, a pledge to himself that he’s not going to repeat past mistakes.
It makes us wonder if he’s been struggling with sobriety more than he’s let on.
Justin’s mostly different now.
These days, he’s more about his faith (like his parents, he’s a Christian, and pretty die-hard about it) and less about substance abuse.
He might be leaning on his faith to stay sober, which can be tricky in the same way that staying sober for another person can be tricky, but that’s his business unless he starts doing crimes again.
One of his many, many tattoos reads “Better at 70,” which seems to be a motto about becoming a better person throughout his life instead of just coasting along.
Presumably, it also applies to his desire to remain in good legal standing.
He put up a stencil of the tattoo on Instagram for fans to see if they wanted to also get the tattoo
It’s not a great tattoo or even a great catchphrase, but you know that he still has some fans who are intense enough to get it.
We don’t think that he’s necessarily conscious of the effect that his throwback photos can have.
To him, they show only the consequences of his past bad behavior.
To us, they’re a reminder that he’s recently seemed to just give up completely on having nice hair.
Like, he’s had a few genuinely good hairstyles, including in that mugshot, and now he keep his head buzzed?
There’s no personality there.
Also his throwbacks remind us that his skin used to be more visible.
It’s not that he doesn’t have the right to tattoo himself to his heart’s content, because he can decorate his meat prison however he likes.
But … his tattoo choices tend to not be great.
And we’re allowed to grimace at the photos.
We’re also allowed to grimace at his captions about jail.
Because some people might have been looking at an actual sentence for drag racing and a DUI.
But Justin’s deal, if you’ll recall, involved him paying $ 50,000 (as a donation to a youth charity).
In other words … he got out of prison time because he’s rich.
Meanwhile, there are innocent people who can’t afford bail for crimes that they didn’t commit, so they spend months behind bars and eventually cop plea deals that admit guilt just so that they can see their families again.
So, you know, maybe Justin shouldn’t be complaining about how little fun he had in jail.
It can get so much worse than what little he experienced.
But it’s really no surprise that he lives in a bubble, you know?
