Justin Bieber is on Seth Rogen’s radar again. The 32-year-old comic-actor opened up on Howard Stern’s Sirius show on Monday to recall instances of not-really-much-to-write-home-about-behavior and slam Bieber as a ‘motherf**ker.’ It’s not the first time Seth has vented about his fellow Canadian and won’t be the last. Our question, which we’ll whisper, is anyone else finding Rogen’s fixation the teeniest bit dull?
Justin Bieber can just go ahead and tick the non-Belieber box by Seth Rogen’s name.
There shouldn’t be any doubt after Rogen’s infamous tweet in January, when he called the singer a “piece of s***.” But, just in case anyone needed refreshing, the Neighbor’s actor revealed his reasons for hating Bieber on Monday’s edition of Howard Stern’s XM radio show.
After explaining to Stern that he first met Bieber backstage at a German talk show when the then child star requested a meet; to hear Seth tell it, Justin acted as if it was Rogen who had asked.
“I’ve met him a few times. He’s a good example of someone who you meet, who you think you are going to hate , and then you get to hate him,” Rogen recalled.
“You meet him and he lives up to every one of your expectations of how you hope he’ll be,” he added of Bieber.
Elaborating, the comic explained that one of Bieber’s people asked him to step out of his dressing room to meet the kid singer.
Hamming with Stern, Rogen went on,
“And it was weird, I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll meet him.’ So I went outside to meet him and he was acting like I asked to meet him.”
Rogen said he remembered thinking, “I was like, ‘He’s a little bit of a motherf–ker’ Whatever. He’s a bit of a d**k .”
We’re going to press pause here to note two things.
It’s possible Rogen misread Bieber’s reaction, which could well have been a case of Justin trying to impress Seth by playing it cool.
But even if it was an accurate recollection, the encounter doesn’t seem serious enough to warrant writing off a child as a “motherf**ker.”
Fast forward to Seth’s next Bieber experience, which was at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
The “ Baby ” singer would have been 16, which means when Rogen first met Justin at the German talk show he was even younger.
“I saw him again at like an MTV awards show, he literally had a snake wrapped around his f–king wrist that he was wearing,” Rogen ranted to Stern.
“Like a live snake as an accoutrement. I was like, ‘What the f–k?’ I talked to him for like five minutes. I just remember thinking, ‘F–k this kid.’ I remember thinking, ‘He’s a piece of shit.’”
We’re hitting pause again. We actually had to check the text to see if perhaps Rogen had said Bieber was carrying a ticking bomb or maybe a baby on a leash.
“F–k this kid?” over an adolescent having fun with a snake at something as trite as an MTV awards show? A tad excessive, we think.
Rogen went on to unfavorably compare Zac Efron and Bieber, saying that when he met the former Disney star, Efron seemed to be aware that Seth ” as a man in my late 20s/early 30s, would f–king hate him.”
What??!!
It’s telling that Rogen believes a presumption of hate is an acceptable default emotion when meeting past or present Disney/teen/tween-targeted stars — just because.
Bieber had “zero f–ing percent of that,” Rogen says . “No humility, no awareness, no sense that ‘I appeal to young, young people, maybe a grown man who works in comedy doesn’t f–king give a sh*t about me. Maybe I should act in such a way that perhaps this isn’t the great experience of his f–king life.’”
Leaving Bieber’s later legal woes aside — as they hadn’t yet happened when Rogen formed an opinion that a child should be compared to something scraped off shoes — and despite being aware we’re almost heroically out of step with the rest of the baying echo chamber:
Our take on the big man’s fury?
Chill out. Seth.
Not all kids are clued in or self-aware, and most of them grow up to be not particularly clued in or self aware young adults who will either mature the hard way — or not at all.
But sometimes, if they’re lucky, adults around them who may be wiser and kinder take the time to show them the way instead of assuming they will hate someone younger than them before they’ve even met, then taking repetitive pot shots once they have.
Perhaps it’s time for Rogen to find a different party-piece?
When incessantly calling Justin Bieber, who hasn’t yet reached the age of majority, a “d**k,” a “motherf**ker” or a “piece of s**t” becomes your calling card, you’re not a Bill Hicksian-funnyman — just a bully with a worldwide microphone.