Ariana Grande surprised the audience of her second Coachella performance with a Justin Bieber cameo, but it didn't take long for accusations of lip syncing to surface on the internet. One E! News host in particular, Morgan Stewart, took several digs at the artist, prompting Bieber to respond on Twitter, and for Grande to come to his defence.
"Poor song started before him," Stewart said on E!'s Nightly Pop after showing a clip of the performance. "I did not realize it was going to be that bad."
Bieber caught the talk show, it seems, and decided to call her out, tweeting directly at the host and imploring both her and the public to have a different attitude toward artists.
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"Think about how awesome it felt for me to be on that stage after being away for so long the excitement and joy it gave me doing the thing i love the most," he said. "i sang to to backtrack like most cameos do this is a normal thing, And rather than try and make people feel accepted and loved you find things to pick apart like the world isn’t full of that already.. we can find something negative to say about anything or anyone When are we gonna be the kind of people that find joy in adding value to one another and not tearing each other apart.."
And rather than being positive you belittle people. Think about how awesome it felt for me to be on that stage after being away for so long the excitement and joy it gave me doing the thing i love the most, i sang to to backtrack like most cameos do this is a normal thing,
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) April 24, 2019
Grande hopped on Twitter as well to emphasize the last-minute nature of Bieber's performance.
"we also decided to do this ten minutes before my set started," she said. "we had 0 soundcheck, 0 rehearsal. u were singing with the back tracking like most cameos do. people are bored. people don’t know how it feels to be under such scrutiny. the world was happy to have u on stage again."
we also decided to do this ten minutes before my set started. we had 0 soundcheck, 0 rehearsal. u were singing with the back tracking like most cameos do. people are bored. people don’t know how it feels to be under such scrutiny. the world was happy to have u on stage again. https://t.co/Rtk9f9gHYb
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) April 24, 2019
Grande blamed blogs (ahem), calling them "unfulfilled" and "purposeless," but clarified that she was just defending her friend.
"i don’t like when people try to ruin beautiful moments for my friends that’s all," she wrote. "have a good day."
i don’t like when people try to ruin beautiful moments for my friends that’s all. have a good day.
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) April 24, 2019
Regardless, Bieber promised a new album "soon," and Grande returns to her Sweetener tour on Thursday.