Justin Bieber Blasts Morgan Stewart After Lip-Sync Flub, and Ariana Grande Chimed in Too

Justin Bieber appeared onstage as a surprise guest during Ariana Grande‘s set at Coachella this weekend, with the singer arriving to perform his mega-hit song “Sorry.” As Bieber was performing, fans noticed that his vocals sounded suspiciously identical to the ones on the recorded version of the track, leading many to believe that the star had been lip syncing.

E!’s Morgan Stewart addressed the moment during a segment on the network’s Nightly Pop, visibly cringing when video of the performance was played.

“I did not realize it was going to be that bad,” she said before addressing Bieber’s physical appearance. “He definitely looks like he put an Oxy pad on that forehead, but I don’t care. That is f—ed up!”

The clip prompted Bieber to tweet directly at the reporter on Wednesday and accuse her of belittling him.

“@Morgan_Stewart imagine if you spent even half the time you spend laughing at other peoples expense actually building people up and encouraging people how much positivity you could bring,” he wrote. “What hurts about this is the fact that you have a platform to make a difference.”

In a second tweet, Bieber explained what happened, writing that he sang to the song’s backing track.

“And rather than being positive you belittle people,” he wrote. “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 backtrack like most cameos do this is a normal thing.”

The 25-year-old also noted that the world doesn’t need any more negativity.

“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,” Bieber tweeted. “When are we gonna be the kind of people that find joy in adding value to one another and not tearing each other apart..”

Grande chimed in on the matter on her own Twitter account, reacting to the video of Stewart criticizing Bieber’s performance.

“people look so ugly when they talk about other people like this, it’s crazy,” she wrote. “like no matter how pretty you are or how long u spent getting ready, u ugly to me now. HOW do people watch s— like this lmao.”

During the performance, Bieber took the opportunity to speak to the crowd and shared that he had no idea he would be performing that night. The appearance marked his first time on stage in two years and was unplanned, which Grande referenced in a pair of now-deleted tweets.

“we also decided to do this ten minutes before my set started. we had 0 soundcheck, 0 rehearsal,” she wrote. “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.”

“[I] don’t like when people try to ruin beautiful moments for my friends that’s all,” Grande added. “have a good day.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Kevin Mazur