Justin Bieber Garners New Controversy After Debuting Dreadlocks

Justin Bieber is wading a fresh wave of controversy after he debuted a new hairstyle this week. On Sunday, the “Changes” singer took to Instagram to share several new photos showing his hair styled in dreadlocks, despite previous backlash to the style. While some were fans of the look, the comments sections of the posts quickly flooded with those accusing the singer of cultural appropriation.

Responding to the style, which is seen as a hairstyle closely tied to Black culture and as insensitive for white people to wear, one person simply wrote, “JUSTIN PLS STOP,” a sentiment that many others shared. One person requested that Bieber “please educate yourself on culture appropriation…. You shouldn’t be wearing dreads,” with several others noting, “this is cultural appropriation… I know you can do better.” Somebody else wrote, “like you need to do better this is so insensitive towards black people and their cultural hairstyles, they’re not meant for you,” with somebody else commenting, “shave it for the love of god.” Another person joined in by questioning, “didnt you say you were educating yourself about black culture so what is this foolery.”

The backlash continued on Twitter, where one person tweeted, “Justin sweetheart you have to understand that to support black people and the anti racism movement you have to be coherent to what you preach and that means not doing cultural appropriation ever dreadlocks do not look good on you.” Another person wrote, “Not justin bieber featuring MLK on his album completely unprovoked, then b-lining to grinch finger dreads post haste,” with a third adding, “Justin has been friends with black artists for so long now he definitely know dreadlocks do not belong to him, why does he keep getting away with bad intentional decisions.”

Bieber, who has not responded to the backlash but did share a new photo of the hairstyle Tuesday morning, notably faced similar backlash in 2016 when he wore his hair in dreadlocks. After being accused of cultural appropriation, the singer cut off his dreadlocks, though at the time he did not directly respond to the controversy, instead sharing a video on Instagram captioned, “Being weird is fun’ if u r not weird I don’t like you.”

Bieber’s new style comes after he opened up in June about the ways he’s “benefitted off Black culture.” In a social media post at the time, Bieber said his “style, how I sing, dance, perform, and my fashion have all been influenced and inspired by Black culture” and vowed to use his “platform this day forward to learn, to speak up about racial injustice and systemic oppression, and to identify ways to be a part of much needed change.”