INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Big Sean Didn’t Angry-Tweet About Justin Bieber Over Ariana Grande Hug

By Page Mackinley
Published on: 10:10 PST, Apr 9, 2015

Big Sean isn’t mad about a thing and he didn’t post a tweet about Justin Bieber touching Ariana Grande during a concert, despite the Internet losing its collective mind over a post which pretended he was.

Justin Bieber, Big Sean, Ariana Grande, and the feud that never was are a lesson for our photoshopped times.

As anyone with a working brain knows by now, Big Sean didn’t post a tweet threatening to end Justin Bieber, because of a hug the Biebs gave the rapper’s girlfriend Ariana Grande during her show at The Forum in Inglewood, California, on Wednesday night.

The supposed tweet sent by Big Sean — who TMZ originally claimed was at the concert, but was in fact kicking back in Justin Bieber’s homeland at the time — was fake. And it is very likely that TMZ were more than slightly aware their initial story was possibly hooey.

But, hey. Now that Justin Bieber is no longer providing us with enough drama with actual incidents, who cares if we all have some mean-spirited fun at his expense? Not to mention Big Sean and Ariana Grande’s?

Justin Bieber
(Photo: That alleged tweet posted by Big Sean is fake, said the rapper’s rep)

Back to the absurd: A rep for Big Sean told TMZ that the tweet incorrectly attributed to Big Sean was fake.

That’s the tweet which sent Black Twitter into a rage spiral, and prompted acres of media outlet lemmings to claim variants along headlines such as: “Big Sean angry Justin Bieber Groped His Girl Ariana Grande,”, about a 21-year-old hugging another 21-year-old that he is good friends with.

While it’s been clear for nearly two years that a media narrative declared open season on Justin Bieber after his string of legal woes and mistakes, the eagerness of most outlets to abandon skepticism over stories involving something as fake-able as a tweet says a great deal about the skewed negative narrative now firmly noosed around the Canadian.

To add insult to injury, TMZ trilled, “We’re told Justin and Sean are good friends… and that he and Ariana are just fine.”

That remains to be seen. The threatening tweet story may leave a nasty aftertaste. All the writers and outlets that wanted to hook readers on Thursday morning with a juicy, but fake, story, are just dandy. Bieber, Big Sean, Grande, and those who care about them may not be.

Given that it’s widely known that Big Sean is a longtime Biebs pal — the rapper performed the original interlude on the very song (“As Long As You Love Me”) during which the Biebs hugged Grande — intelligent reporting should have realized it was unlikely Big Sean would have called the Biebs out on Twitter, even if he did have a problem.

Did Bieber hug Grande during a song? Yes. Did she wriggle away? Yes – but with a goofy smile echoed by Bieber’s. Did Grande also faux-flirt-dance with him during their two songs together, and have they done so in previous shows? Yes.

Is it typical for singers to pretend to be into other while duetting on love songs? Yes. Is the Biebs a single guy with a rep for liking the ladies? Yes. Does that matter? Not really, in the context of a concert performance in a comeback he needs and cares about. Was Big Sean in the audience during the Forum show, as TMZ claimed? No.

For all of those reasons, and probably more, TMZ‘s alarmist “Big Sean Tweet Threatened Justin Bieber Over Ariana Grande” story should have been regarded as suspect.

But “Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda are the last words of a fool.”

Only the foolish would fail to realize that the reason TMZ ran that story — when they must have seen the same tweets slamming Big Sean’s tweet as fake before publishing that the Inquisitr and other outlets did — is down to Bieber’s continuing use as a lucrative, clickbait target for a exploitative, frequently deceptive entertainment news cycle.

TMZ let their original claim about Big Sean, Bieber, and Grande, run for a good few hours before posting the rep’s denial. Likewise, the speed at which media outlets jumped on the negative Bieber story was noticeably slower than their reporting of the rebuttal.

Many outlets didn’t even follow up. Why waste readers’ eyeballs on a dull denial?

This has happened time and time again with reporting on Bieber over the past two years, as the Inquisitr has frequently noted. It is clear the gossip cycle isn’t willing to let go of its vice grip on Bieber, even after his many apologies, a bruising roast, and teenage missteps that don’t warrant the hate he receives.

The rumor mill’s modus operandi is: “If we can’t nail Bieber for things he’s actually doing, let’s simply ignore red flags in news stories — like a photoshopped tweet — and nail him anyway.”

Earlier Thursday, the good ladies of The Talk spent a portion of the show criticizing Bieber because of the fake Big Sean tweet. That’s millions of viewers who may never see TMZ’s updated story or other rebuttals, who may now believe a lie.

Someone really needs to tell Justin Bieber that — unlike most people on the planet — he will have to live a blameless, spotless, perfect life from now on.

Because if the presumptive media and general public’s reaction to his faux-romancing of Grande during a concert and a photoshopped tweet can set off headlines claiming that he “groped” a friend he was photographed laughing with after the show — God help him if he ever needs the benefit of the doubt in the future.

Bieber’s pal Joe Termimini’s Instagram caption reads, “The show doesn’t stop once these crazy fools leave the stage… Encore @justinbieber @arianagrande.”

[Images via Splash News/INFPhotos]

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