It was already a surprise when Drake pushed the boundaries and name-dropped exes Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez during his verse on DJ Khaled’s song, “POPSTAR,” in July of 2020. So, imagine our surprise when not only did Justin take over Drake’s parts in the music video — which was released on Sept. 3 — but he was also a good sport and mouthed along to Selena’s name in the video!
Before we get to that point, the video starts off with Drake being bombarded with videos from DJ Khaled, who is pleading with the Toronto rapper to make a video for their “Popstar” collab. So, driven to desperate measures, Drake calls in a “favor”: AKA, having Justin pretend to be him.
The music video begins, and we see our “Popstar,” Justin, indulging in his worst pop star behavior as he parties with gorgeous models in his Beverly Hills mansion (yes, the one he shares with wife Hailey Baldwin). Scooter Braun even makes a cameo, thanks to this cheeky line from Drake: “I’m a popstar, but this s–t ain’t bubblegum, yeah/ You would probably think my manager is Scooter Braun, yea.” As the Biebs lip syncs away to Drake’s verses, we start sweating as he approaches this line: “Look, Ariana, Selena, my Visa.”
Of course, this is a reference to none another than Ariana Grande and Ms. Gomez. Staying faithful to the job he came to do, Justin fully lip syncs his ex-girlfriend’s name! Even more awkward is the fact that the music video turns out to be a bad dream — a la The Wizard of Oz — and Justin awakens in bed next to his wife, Hailey. “You okay?,” Hailey asks, to which Justin says, “Yeah I’m good, I had a crazy dream. Drake asked me to be in a video, but he wasn’t in the video…I love you baby.” Even if Justin says Selena’s name in a video, we know where his heart truly belongs!
Justin’s lip-syncing moment comes after fans believed they caught the “Changes” singer watching Selena’s new cooking show, Selena + Chef, on HBO Max in August. Justin shared a screenshot of his HBO Max dashboard, which just so happened to display the promo of his ex’s show in the corner. To be fair, the show wasn’t on Justin’s actual watchlist, but the photo still caused a conundrum among fans.
Earlier this year, Justin admitted that he didn’t exactly treat his on-again, off-again relationship with Selena — which roughly spanned eight years before ending for good in early 2018 — with caution. “In my previous relationship, I went off and just went crazy and went wild, just was being reckless,” Jusitn confessed during an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music in February. He changed his bad boy ways after Hailey entered the picture, whom he married in Sept. 2018. “This time, I took the time to really build myself and focus on me, and try to make the right decisions and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, I got better,” Justin explained.
As for how Selena felt about that confession, a source EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife at the time, “Selena feels vindicated by Justin’s words but that doesn’t take back all that happened while they were together. Selena doesn’t want her relationship with Justin to define her but she does feel some comfort that he spoke out about what he did. She hopes that he is being genuine.”