Fat Joe recently opened up about a surprising moment in pop culture history: helping bail out Justin Bieber following the singer’s 2014 arrest in Miami Beach.
During a candid episode of his Joe and Jada podcast with rapper Jadakiss, Fat Joe recounted how he stepped in to help the then-troubled pop star, who had been arrested on charges of driving under the influence, driving with an expired license, and resisting arrest.
“It wasn’t no money. It was nothing,” Fat Joe said of the bail. “Couple of hundred dollars, a thousand dollars. We used Rich Playa’s girl to bail him out. So we bail out Bieber—$100.”
At the time, reports stated Bieber’s bail was actually $2,500.
Fat Joe then revealed that Bieber personally called to thank him—but the conversation quickly took a turn.
“He starts saying, ‘I’m a gangster now,’” Joe recalled. “He starts telling me he’s a gangster. ‘I went to jail.’ I said, ‘Yo, Justin. Listen, bro. You gotta stop. We don’t want you gangster. We want you singing Baby, baby.’”
According to Fat Joe, his words of caution didn’t sit well with Bieber.
“We don’t want you on the news. We don’t want you getting arrested,” he said. “We want you to succeed. You’re Justin Bieber. My daughter worships you! We all love you!”
Unfortunately, the conversation seemed to put a strain on their relationship. “That kinda messed up my relationship with him at that moment,” Joe admitted. “He felt like I’m the fun killer. I f***ed up the moment.”
Bieber reflected on the arrest himself in a 2021 Instagram post marking the incident’s seventh anniversary.
“Not my finest hour,” he wrote. “Not proud of where I was at in my life. I was hurting, unhappy, confused, angry, misled, misunderstood, and angry at God.”
He even poked fun at his wardrobe that night: “Also wore too much leather for someone in Miami.”
Bieber ended the message on a hopeful note: “All this to say God has brought me a long way. From then ’til now I do realize something… God was as close to me then as he is right now.”
Source: YouTube
