Father’s Day on social media is, as a rule, rather heartwarming and wholesome. Meghan showed Prince Harry’s fun side as a father in a video of never-seen-before pictures of Archie and Lilibet. 

David Beckham shared private pictures of himself with his four children, apparently as a sweet olive branch to estranged son Brooklyn, who featured strongly.

But not, it seems, if you are Justin Bieber. His Father’s Day posts, some 20 in all, included drug use, an argument with a former friend whom he called a ‘p***y’, and, most shockingly, an apparent reference to wife Hailey as a ‘lil ho’. (That’s a little whore, for those not au fait.)

It also included multiple uses of the ‘single finger’ emoji, which seems to be the message he most wants to give to his 294million followers on Instagram.

Many are convinced this worrying six-hour spree – the stream of erratic posts were uploaded between 2pm and 8pm on Father’s Day – reflects a dramatic mental health spiral.

They were followed at 5.50am yesterday by a long Instagram story in which he confessed to being ‘broken’, ‘angry’ and ‘exhausted’ from thinking about himself all the time.

Justin and Hailey sharing a passionate kiss during their nuptials in September 2019

Justin and Hailey sharing a passionate kiss during their nuptials in September 2019 

It begins: ‘People keep telling me to heal. Don’t you think if I could have fixed myself I would have already. I know I’m broken. I know I have anger issues.’

The apparent meltdown comes as Bieber seems to boast that he’s continuing to abuse drugs.

A picture of his hand holding a mostly smoked ‘blunt’, or joint, is among the Father’s Day posts.

Disturbingly, two of the videos are shot by Bieber as he lies on the floor, filming his slippered feet. Is he too out of it to stand?

Numerous puzzling posts show a close up of his toes, or of his face or torso. In one series, shared towards the end of the posting spree, he is grinning wildly and his eyes appear unfocused behind red sunglasses. This is followed by an Instagram video showing a bong on a poolside table. Of the handsome, prodigiously talented, carefree teenager who conquered the world, there is no trace.

One of Justin¿s Father¿s Day photos with a rude emoji

One of Justin’s Father’s Day photos with a rude emoji

And where is the contentment you might expect of a wealthy, successful man with a beautiful wife and ten-month-old baby called Jack Blues?

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that what broke Bieber was his rapid rise from impoverished obscurity in Ontario, Canada, to become one of the biggest music artists in the world – apparently not well protected by his parents, his management or his record label.

He was spotted by talent manager Scooter Braun on YouTube when he was 13, and signed to a talent contract by Braun and R&B singer Usher when he was 14. His debut single was released when he was 15 and his album topped the US charts in 2010 when he had just turned 16.

He was sold as a squeaky-clean, God-fearing, boy-next-door teen idol. But from the start the sharks were circling.

When Bieber was 15 and starting to become famous, he was interviewed alongside P Diddy, aka Sean Combs – currently on trial for sex trafficking and racketeering.

Combs, 24 years older, proclaims: ‘He’s having 48 hours with Diddy, where we hanging out and what we’re doing we can’t really disclose. But it’s definitely a 15-year-old’s dream.’

Bieber tells his friend, ‘Let’s go get some girls,’ to which Combs replies: ‘Man after my heart. That’s what I’m talking about.’

There is no suggestion that he was abused by Diddy, but the timing of his latest spiral, as Diddy is on trial, has led to speculation that he was put into situations that were psychologically devastating for a teenager.

Justin also shared a photo of what seemed to be a joint

Justin also shared a photo of what seemed to be a joint

Aged 20, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs after police halted a wild pre-dawn race on the streets of Miami Beach.

He has been open in interviews about how cannabis was superseded by an addiction to prescription pills and how things got so serious that his security would come and check he had a pulse while he slept.

He says he has been sober since that DUI (driving under the influence) offence in 2014.

This year, as pictures of Bieber looking emaciated, pale and unsteady circulated, his PR team went on the attack. One briefed that the ‘narrative’ about Bieber’s mental and physical health was ‘exhausting and pitiful and shows that despite the obvious truth, people are committed to keeping negative, salacious, harmful narratives alive’.

Within weeks their charge was gleefully posting pictures with a giant glass bong on his lap and rapping about ‘flying high’.

In other images his face was all but obscured by smoke, and he held what appeared to be a cannabis joint. The team did not pass comment on his latest pictures yesterday.

Nor did they comment on his clearly distressed mental state.

Bieber posted a series of screenshots of a conversation with a friend in which he chides: ‘Asking a traumatised person not to be traumatised is simply mean.’

Where is his relationship with wife Hailey Bieber in all of this? In one post he shows off a gold Audemars Piguet watch and pair of suede Prada backpacks and crows: ‘Happy Daddy Day to me u lil ho.’

Can he really be calling his model wife a ‘lil ho’?

You might write it off as an in-joke between them, were it not for Hailey’s response, which is perhaps the most powerful of all – she did not wish him a Happy Father’s Day.

The singer posted this image from the ground

The singer posted this image from the ground

This is quite an omission as it is Bieber’s first as a dad and, judging by his posts, they spent at least some of the day together. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to send him warm wishes. 

On Mother’s Day last month she posted multiple pictures of herself with their adorable son – Bieber was not featured in any of those.

No wonder that some think the pair have already broken up and are simply getting together in order to co-parent Jack.

The chatter has only increased because Hailey seems to have withdrawn from her romance with the singer at the same time as accepting a billion-dollar deal for her Rhode beauty brand from US cosmetic firm Elf Beauty.

California is a community property state, meaning that in a divorce the assets and debts acquired during the marriage are divided equally. But if Hailey were to have a giant payday after the marriage was over, then she could keep that billion dollars for herself.

Another photo that has sparked concern for Beiber, showing a bong on a poolside table

Another photo that has sparked concern for Beiber, showing a bong on a poolside table

Justin and Hailey first met backstage at Today, NBC’s morning TV show, in 2009 after Hailey’s father, actor Stephen Baldwin, introduced them. Hailey has admitted to being a Justin Bieber ‘superfan’ and recently joked with Vogue that a ‘potion’ kept in her handbag was created when she was 12 years old to seduce the music star.

She said: ‘My dad flew me to meet with this witch who lived in the mountains, and she made this specifically for me. She told me that it would make a young Canadian popstar fall in love with me, so yeah, been taking this one for years.’

The joke is in reference to trolls still blaming Hailey for the breakdown of Justin’s relationship with fellow pop star Selena Gomez (they split for good in March 2018 and Selena is now engaged to music producer Benny Blanco).

Justin and Hailey got married at a Lower Manhattan courthouse in September 2018 after a 12-week romance and ten-year friendship. In a February 2019 interview with Vogue, before celebrating their marriage with family, friends and A-listers, Hailey and Justin confirmed they had been seeing a marriage counsellor. Hailey said: ‘The thing is, marriage is very hard. That is the sentence you should lead with. It’s really effing hard.’

Seven months later, on September 30, 2019, the couple exchanged vows during a ‘second wedding’ – a $500,000 religious ceremony held at the Somerset Chapel at the five-star resort, Montage Palmetto Bluff. Hailey was given away by her father.

On May 9, 2024, Justin and Hailey renewed their wedding vows, which coincided with their pregnancy announcement.

Hailey displayed her blossoming bump wearing an elegant Saint Laurent gown in video footage shared to both their Instagram profiles, which garnered more than 12million likes. And when Jack Blues was born in August 2024, she said that it had changed her from ‘head to toe’.

But by March this year, fans speculated that the couple had split after noticing that Hailey had suddenly ‘unfollowed’ Justin on Instagram.

Rubbishing the claims, Hailey later claimed in a TikTok comment: ‘It’s a glitch! Didn’t unfollow him.’

In one post Justin shows off a gold Audemars Piguet watch and pair of suede Prada backpacks and crows: ¿Happy Daddy Day to me u lil ho¿

In one post Justin shows off a gold Audemars Piguet watch and pair of suede Prada backpacks and crows: ‘Happy Daddy Day to me u lil ho’

She went to the Met Gala Ball without him, but Bieber wrote of pictures of his wife on that night: ‘I see it. I like it and I want it.’

Last month, when the US celebrated Mother’s Day, Hailey posted a series of photos showing her both pregnant and with son Jack, but none of the images featured Justin.

She wrote alongside the photographs: ‘I love being your mommy Jack Blues. Happy Mother’s Day.’

And on her first Mother’s Day, Justin wrote online: ‘Love u moms but mothers day sucks ass.’

He apparently took another foul swipe at his wife online when she got her first Vogue cover two weeks ago, writing: ‘Yo this reminds me when Hailey and I got into a huge fight, I told hails she would never be on the cover of vogue, yikes I know, so mean, for some reason because I felt so disrespected I thought I gotta get even.’

Justin continued: ‘Think as we mature we realise that we’re not helping anything by getting even, we’re honestly just prolonging what we really want which is intimacy and connection.’

You couldn’t blame Hailey Bieber for losing patience with her very troubled husband. Now 31, he hasn’t released an album since 2021 and there have been reports – denied – of financial trouble caused after he cancelled a 2022 tour for health reasons.

Many fans express worry for him on Instagram, and beg him to seek help. But Justin says that he can’t be helped.

Despairingly, he writes: ‘I tried to do the work my whole life to be like the people who told me I needed to be fixed like them.

‘And it just keeps making me more tired and more angry. The harder I try to grow the more focused on myself I am. Jesus is the only person who keeps me wanting to make my life about others. Because honestly I’m exhausted with thinking about myself lately, aren’t you?’

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