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 The approach appears to be working. His new single "What Do
You Mean?" on Thursday notched up more than 21 million streams
on Spotify globally in just five days, setting a new record for
the music app.
Bieber, now 21, broke down in tears at Sunday's MTV Video Music
Awards show after singing the song. The sobs, he told Jimmy
Fallon on "The Tonight Show," were authentic.
"Honestly, I just wasn't expecting them to support me in the way
they did. Last time I was at an award show I was booed," Bieber
told Fallon on Wednesday.
Bieber is back on the promotional trail before the November
release of his first album of new material in three years, most
of which were marked by bad behavior off stage and a string of
court cases that risked damaging his image as a family-friendly
teen heartthrob.
Bieber found fame as a 13-year-old and went on to become a
global pop phenomenon with hits like "Baby" and "Believe."
He said in January that he wanted to shed the "arrogant" and
"conceited" attitude that led to arrests for careless driving,
pelting a neighbor's home with eggs, assaulting a photographer,
and abandoning a pet monkey at a German airport.
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"I just had a bunch of knuckleheads around me," he told Fallon of
his wild child period. "That was pretty much it. You have to figure
out what you are OK with, and what you're not OK with, but you have
to test the waters. I just happen to be in front of a spotlight and
they caught all those moments."
In the first of a weeklong promotion on NBC's "Today" show on
Thursday, Bieber's work with the Make a Wish Foundation was
highlighted in interviews with two young female fans who got to meet
him when they were seriously ill. He will perform a free "Today"
show concert in New York City on Sept. 10.
The 21 million streams for "What Do You Mean?" broke Spotify's
record for the biggest first week streams for a single. The previous
record holder was One Direction's "Drag Me Down," Spotify said.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Andrew Hay and Doina Chiacu)
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