A haunting, honest look at Justin Bieber’s Lonely—and the uncomfortable truth about how we treated him when he needed help most.
There’s something about Lonely—the song Justin Bieber did with benny blanco and Finneas—that just won’t leave me alone. It’s been out for years now, but every time I hear it, I get the same gut-punch feeling I did the first time. Which is wild because most songs lose that kind of impact after a while. Not this one.
Maybe it’s because I remember exactly what it was like when the US collectively turned on Bieber. He was young, rich, and famous, and yeah—kind of a mess. But he was also, like… 19? 20? Just a kid. A really famous, really privileged kid, sure, but still a kid. And instead of thinking, “Hey, maybe he needs some support,” we dunked on him. Hard. It was trendy to hate him. We rolled our eyes at his breakdowns, shared his mugshot like it was a meme, and shouted for him to “go back to Canada.” And honestly? I was right there with everyone else.
It’s not something I’m proud of. Looking back, it’s embarrassing how quick we all were to pile on. Myself included. I didn’t think twice about how damaging that kind of attention could be. I was just young and judgy and thought I was better because I wasn’t the one acting out on TMZ. But man, that smugness does not age well.
The Song Won’t Let Me Off the Hook
And that’s what Lonely brings up for me. Every time I hear it, I feel a weird mix of admiration and shame. It’s so raw and stripped down—just his voice and a piano and the weight of everything he went through. It’s brutally honest and vulnerable in a way that makes me want to turn it off and also never stop listening.
It reminds me of how quick we are to dehumanize famous people when they’re at their lowest. How easy it is to mock instead of empathize. It’s not like Bieber didn’t make some bad choices—he did—but the way we reacted? That was worse.
So yeah, Lonely still wrecks me a little. I kind of hate how much it makes me reflect on my own behavior, but I love the song anyway. I’ll keep listening to it, over and over, even if it makes me uncomfortable. Maybe because it makes me uncomfortable.
And maybe that’s the point.
