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Post Malone Clarifies He Wasn’t ‘Choking’ Justin Bieber, See Video Of Faux Fight [Updated]

By Page Mackinley
Published on: 10:15 PST, Apr 13, 2016

Updated: Justin Bieber later added his voice to the Post Malone faux “choking” drama with the Instagram post below, which he captioned “Backstreets back” for self-explanatory reasons.

Original Report:

Post Malone was not choking Justin Bieber at a nightclub, despite a slew of media headlines misinterpreting the freeze-frame photo taken of the music stars during their post-Purpose World Tour concert partying at Houston’s Clé nightclub in Atlanta, Georgia, last Saturday.

The pics appeared to show Malone (a.k.a White Sprewell) choking out a startled-looking Biebs. They followed TMZ‘s video footage of the Canadian superstar lightly tapping what looked like a cigarette on Malone’s arm at one point during their night out.

Inevitably, U.K. tabloids and other media outlets put 2 + 2 together and came up with 9999999999. It was assumed the buddies fell out after Bieber’s cigarette prank, with Malone “retaliating” by choking the “Sorry” singer. Malone is one of two support acts on Bieber’s current sold-out Purpose World Tour.

Here’s the now infamous photo.

However, amid feverish internet speculation on Wednesday that a Malone-Bieber feud is in play, Malone took to Twitter to explain that he and Bieber like to rough-house with each other and that he wasn’t actually choking the superstar, while also announcing his new mixtape is on the way.

A newly surfaced video shows the pair’s faux-fight at the nightclub [Scroll down]. Malone’s tweets follow.

See below for the video showing Malone pretending to choke the Biebs while the duo partied on the dancefloor.

Following Malone’s Twitter clarification, media outlets updated their reports while #PostMalone continued to trend on the social media network on Wednesday.

Naturally, numerous memes of Malone’s faux Bieber-chokehold are doing the rounds online. Of these, the best was tweeted by Thomas Nassif, a digital strategist at DirecTV.

The image apes Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous late 15th-century mural painting The Last Supper, imagining Bieber as Jesus Christ telling his twelve disciples, [as told in the Gospel of John, 13:21] that one of them would betray him.

Meanwhile, in other Justin Bieber news, the singer played the first of two Purpose World Tour shows at Atlanta’s Philips Arena last night. Ludacris joined the singer onstage to perform his rap during the pair’s 2010 “Baby” hit.

The Biebs’ original mentor, Usher, was also in the house. As was the singer August Alsina.

See below for footage of Bieber, Malone, Odell Beckham, Jr., and other pals having fun at the Houston nightclub. During the festivities, Post and Justin sang Malone’s cult hit “White Iverson.”

In conclusion: less haste in media reports and more context makes for better journalism.

[Images via Justin Bieber/Post Malone Instagram]

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