DISGRACELAND - Justin Bieber: Murder Plots, Drag Racing, and Deportation Threats

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Justin Bieber is the pop star who went from preteen heartthrob to pure hedonist seemingly overnight. He raced into a bumpy adulthood when he mixed drag racing with a DUI. His frat bro of a father steered him towards a life of intense partying that encouraged smoking hazardous amounts of pot on private planes. The boy who once sang the hit single “Baby” was suddenly an unbearable man, barreling towards an early death with a smug attitude. Americans called for his deportation. One deranged fan plotted his murder. And it was up to Justin to exit his life in the fast lane – before it was too late to say sorry.To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Justin Bieber are insane. He mixed drag racing with a DUI when he was just 19 years old. He once smoked so much grass on a private jet that the pilots had to wear oxygen masks. He went from heartthrob to hedonists seemingly overnight with a taste for pills and for partying with his fratbro of a father.

His partying was so out of control that his bodyguards had to check his pulse throughout the night to make sure he was still alive. His behavior compelled over a quarter million Americans to petition for his deportation, and one deranged superfan even plotted his murder. But in between his laundry list of reckless, shameful, and often downright stupid infractions,

yeah, I'll say it, Justin Bieber has made some great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Cindy Lopper Eyes, MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to timber by Pitbull featuring Kesha. And why would I play you that specific slice of sleazy square dance cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on January 22, 2014. And that was the day Justin Bieber woke up in a Miami jail cell.

On this episode, drag racing, DUIs, deportation threats, murder plots, and Justin Bieber. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. Tie it, re-knotted in the front once, really tight, and then put it. put it in a knot, and that cuts off all the oxygen. Dana Martin should have been whispering. Someone here in the joint was no doubt listening to his phone call, noting his oddly specific instructions, but he was too eager to give a shit.

And then tie it back again, really tight, and that seals the deal. He kept repeating that, really tight. This whole operation had to be really tight if it was going to work. Dana needed a few people. to disappear. He'd do it himself if he could. Dana was no shrinking violent. He'd killed before. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the time he was doing, a life sentence for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. For the rest of his days, however many days that would be, Dana wasn't going to

go anywhere besides the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility. But his old prison buddy Mark, Mark was already free, living blissfully on the other side of the barbed wire fence, and probation wasn't going to stop Mark from breaking the law again, especially if Mark's nephew, Tanner, lent the hand. Tanner was the one on the other end of the phone. He listened to Dana's really tight instructions as well as his demands, demands that required specific tools. Tool number one, a paisley necktie, a k.a. Dana's murder weapon of choice. The same calling card he used 12 years earlier in 2000, when he savagely ended that teenage girl's life. Tool number two, hedge clippers, sharp enough to slice off the victim's testicles.

A few castrations would earn Mark and Tanner an extra $2,500 a pop. That's $5,000 per victim. Sometimes Dana spoke in code, called his victims, pit bulls, who needed to be castrated or adopted. a.k.a. Wacked, or AKA K.A. killed. But there was one name Dana didn't hesitate to speak of in code. He asked Tanner if Mark went over the Justin Bieber thing. Dana was going to make sure Justin Bieber never sang again. And for good measure, take out the Pricks bodyguard too. A muscle on Dana's leg, one directly beneath his Justin Bieber tattoo, twitched as he spoke. His criminal record said he was a tough guy, a literal murderer.

The ink on Dana's leg told a different story, a story about a grown man with a soft spot for a pop star from Ontario. But Justin Bieber wasn't a cute pop prodigy anymore. This overconfident, overrated brat who claimed to be Justin Bieber in 2012 was nothing but an imposter. Dana couldn't look at his tattoo anymore without becoming overwhelmed with regret and rage. Justin Bieber had become too big for his britches. someone needed to give him a permanent attitude adjustment. And if Dana couldn't do it due to his present incarcerated circumstances, well, then his buddy Mark and Mark's nephew, Tanner, would.

For a price, of course. Dana made Mark a sweet deal. If he could complete the murders and mutilations, Dana promised him a Ferrari on top of the 50 grand, plus the deed to a farm previously owned by Michael J. Fox. Don't ask. Oh, and the good graces of a Chinese head. heroin gang in New York, then factor in the extra cash for all the severed balls, and Mark was greedy enough not to care about how random and fabricated the reward sounded,

and Dana was deranged enough to say he'd deliver it all. Dana wouldn't be doing the killing, true, but he organized it, and that was enough for him. He'd go down in history as the man responsible for taking down one of America's most prominent pop stars, like the madman who shot Beetle John or the assistant who put a bullet in Selena. Headlines would explode, legions of young girls would weep, and there'd be one less snotty boys strutting around on red carpets with that smug look on his face. Dana craved the notoriety, to be a legend in prison, to be a piece of music history. Everyone would know that he, Dana Martin, executed Justin Bieber, because everyone knew everything

about Justin Bieber, whether they wanted to or not. In 2012, no one dominated pop culture the way that Justin Bieber did, especially not another man. The top 40 game was all about Lady Gaga, Katie Perry, Rihanna. The weekend's Big Break was still on the horizon and Chris Brown was still on the outs with the public. That left the two Justins to shoulder the way to the pop world, Timberlake and Bieber. But even J.T. couldn't keep up with Bieber's unbreakable stride. Justin Bieber's latest album, Believe, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The same album that featured the four-times platinum Nicki Minaj collaboration, Beauty and a Beat.

The song's music video shattered what was then the YouTube record for the most views in 24 hours. It was almost poetic. The boy who started his career on YouTube was now ruling it. The viral rags-to-rich's story of Justin Bieber's career boosted his likability. It was hard to look down on a 12-year-old kid chasing his... dreams online with uploaded covers of Alicia Keys and Neo. His goal wasn't just to become famous and break out of the mouse-infested home he shared with his single mother. The goal was also to just sing, to share what Justin and his mother viewed

as a God-given gift. And there was another person who thought Justin's voice was a blessing that needed to be shared. Scooter Braun. In 2008, the music manager hooked Justin up with Island Records. Justin recorded his first single one time, which the radio played approximately a million times. America instantly fixated on this new kid on the block, the prepubescent wonderkin with the angelic voice and a mop with floppy brown hair.

The young girls worshipped him, moms approved of him, and his songs wormed their way into the heads of the unsuspecting and the believers alike. Heads like Dana Martin's head. But that was then. Back when Justin Bieber was just a, kid. Turning 18, though, changed him in Dana Martin's mind. Justin was reckless, cocky, a phony.

He was smoking weed and standing around trying to look like a tough guy. Dana Martin knew better. The boy who once sang the hit single baby was now an unbearable man. But he was also indestructible. And Dana Martin's friends, Mark and Tanner, were about to find that out the hard way. They didn't know how to read a map. They had no idea where they were. and they never made it to Justin Bieber's show at Madison Square Garden, the planned scene of the crime. By the time Mark figured out where the car was headed, it was too late. His 83 BMW came to a crawl.

He watched as the building in the distance came into focus. Border Patrol. Border Patrol? No. No, this was all wrong. They were supposed to be at Madison Square Garden, not in bum-fuck Vermont on the other side of another country. Border Patrol meant forking over your ID.

And that meant questions from the cops. And that meant whoever was in the booth that afternoon would find Mark's outstanding warrants from back in New Mexico. Mark threw the car into reverse and started the back pedal, but it was too late. Officers zeroed in on the old Beamer trying to make a run for it. Mark was tossed into the clink first, then Tanner for that phone call with Dana. Their murder plot was dead in the water and they didn't have a single snip testicle to show for it. Not to mention that someone beat them to the point.

Because Justin Bieber was dead. The old Justin Bieber that Dana loves so much, at least. And this imposter who called himself Justin Bieber was a shadow of the innocent songbird the world catapulted to superstardom. And there was no telling if he would ever come back. Justin Bieber was already a little messed up behind the wheel of the Lamborghini. He stared at the makeshift racetrack and at the route in front of him. One straight shot down the street, two lanes.

two sports cars. Justin in the yellow Lambo, his pal on a red Ferrari. The signs along Pine Street drives at 30 miles an hour. Speed limits were for squares. Justin liked to think that he lived in the fast lane and that no one was going to slow him down. He made sure of that. His crew would park two SUVs down the street perpendicular to the road, makeshift roadblock. Tonight's Bieber Grand Prix would go off without a hitch. Justin revved the Lamborghini's engine in park just to hear it purr, and then he locked eyes with his friend in the lane beside him. He was on.

Justin threw the car to drive and let that motherfucker fly. The beer on his lips, the weed in his lungs, the prescription pills, and his bloodstream. None of it mattered right now. Justin was chasing a different throw, not a chemical one. Danger. The greatest high. The high of doing something just because you can. and doing it in a car that's not even yours.

Tonight, this rental will get pushed to the max. There were no rules when you were Justin Peeper. The world bent to your will, and it always would. The Lambo's engine roared. The Ferrari gained on him in the next lane. Justin didn't sweat it. It was a born winner. He won on the charts, one on the radio,

won at the award shows, and he'd win again tonight. Even if there weren't many people cruising around Miami Beach at 4 a.m. to see it happen. There were a few passing cars that took notice that night. January 22nd, 2014. Juan, in particular, took more than a passing interest. A patrolling officer recognized the scene from a mile away.

Drag racing, big kids and their big toys being big assholes. The cop banged a Ui and tore down Pine Street until he was right on the Lamborghini's ass. The race may have ended, but that thrill, that high, that danger, was still. Still there. Justin didn't want it to end. What the fuck did I do? Why did you stop me? Justin wanted answers from the officer, who now stood outside the Lambeau driver's side door. Justin reeked of booze. His cheeks flushed red. He refused to believe he was in the wrong. Winners were never wrong. That's what made them winners. I ain't got no fucking weapons. The cop didn't need weapons, just the expired driver's license from Georgia.

Down at the station, Justin Bieber wouldn't own up to the drag racing, but he did own up about the cocktail chemicals in his system. Yeah, he smoked a little weed that night, and yeah, he took some pills, prescription once though, and yeah, he had a drink, one beer, big fucking deal. Was that a crime? Not at home in Canada where the drinking age was 18, but this wasn't Ontario. This was the United States, and he was a couple years shy of the drinking age. McCobbs hit him with three charges, a DUI driving with an expired license and resisting arrest without violence. Three strikes in one night. Thing was, Justin Bieber didn't have any strikes to spare to begin with. 2014 was a mess from the start.

January 9th, Justin Bieber eggs his neighbor's home and causes $20,000 in damages. Yes, 20 grand from eggs. Any damages over $950 pushed vandalism charges beyond a misdemeanor. January 14th, a dozen deputies raid Justin's Calabasasas mansion over the Yegging incident, tore the place apart like he was Tony Montana, and they found nothing. They even seized the security system's hard drives, zero. Justin was clean. His guess, Lil Zah, wasn't so lucky.

The cops uncovered the rapper's coax dash during the raid, or was that ecstasy? The cops didn't know, and they didn't care. They slapped handcuffs on Lilzah while the papers paraded around with photos from the raid. Neither incident was a jaw-dropping scandal. Individual infractions weren't the problem. The problem was how fast Justin could stack up this bullshit without even breaking a sweat. The entire world watched and pissed in a restaurant's mob bucket as he drunkenly cussed out Bill Clinton. They judged him when he covered himself in bed sheets to leave a world-renowned brothel in Brazil.

He claimed he was merely at the fame. centurras to party. He outcranged himself when he wrote a note in the Anne Frank House guest book saying he hoped Anne would have been a believer, which is another word for a diehard fan. Still, these were all just dumb teenage missteps. He could do much worse, like a DUI, three little letters that could ruin your reputation forever. As a boy, Justin Bieber said he'd never become some scandalous celebrity has been. But boy, Justin wasn't here anymore. No matter how hard fans clunk to the early hits and his baby-faced charm, that version of Justin Bieber was dead and buried. An adult, Justin, was proudly digging his grave. Every controversy pushed him another foot forward

into the ground. And the media frenzy surrounding his troubled transition into adulthood practically worked in his favor when it came to leaving the boy Bieber behind. The viral images, the fuzzy videos on blogs, the social media commentary, it all helped the masses see Justin for what he really was. an adult capable of making his own decisions, especially making the wrong decisions over and over again. The Miami authorities only made Justin Bieber suffer in jail for 10 hours after his DUI. Making bail was the easy part. $2,500 was peanuts to Justin.

The real challenge was giving the public an image that would make them forget his fresh mugshot, dashing as it was. Justin had a vision. He strutted out of the Turner-Gilford-Nicom. correctional center and brushed past the swarm of reporters and hopped onto the roof of the first SUV in sight. He kicked back and gave the sea of smartphones a cordial wave. Another man posed just like this over 10 years ago as he left a courtroom, a fellow pop icon enjoying a lifetime of royalty from childhood until the day he did his last moonwalk, Michael Jackson. Michael offered nearly

the same pose when he left the Santa Barbara courthouse in 2004 after pleading not guilty to seven counts of child molestation. Justin even posted the two photos side by side on Instagram in case people miss the reference. But who dared to compare themselves to the king of pop? Who dared to compare themselves to a man who left a courthouse or were allegedly molesting kids? The same guy who hoped Anne Frank would be a believer. That's who. The tacky comparison wasn't Justin's problem right now. Right now he was free. I mean, he was only in jail for 10 hours, but that's a long time when he was trying to tune out the sound of horny violent inmates hollering at you just because he got a pretty face. Justin needed to take the edge off, ASAP. After his photo walk, he and his crew went straight from the

correctional center to the South Beach clubs. Justin didn't bring his drag racing friend along this time, though. He wanted to blow off steam with someone else. Someone who could cut loose like a pro, a good pal named Jeremy. Jeremy had been at the scene of the crime last night. Some people even claimed he was the one who blocked off the street, although Justin denied it. Now Jeremy was here tonight at a table flush with bottles at 5.30 p.m. barely 12 hours after he watched Justin walk away in handcuffs. The media called him a bad influence, but Justin just called him. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. In 2014, Justin Bieber's father, Jeremy wasn't just in the picture. He was in every picture. Paparazzi photo shot at the club, at the beach, at the

game, climbing in and out of luxury cars and private jets next to Justin and his entourage, as if you were one of the bros and not twice the age of everyone around him. Justin and Jeremy weren't always so tight. Justin's father missed plenty in his firstborn son's life, like the day he was born. On March 1st, 1994, Jeremy Bieber was behind bars in a county prison in Ontario after a nasty fight with God knows who about God knows what. But even if Jeremy were a free man that day, he probably wouldn't have been beside his on-again, off-again girlfriend Patty at St. Joseph's Hospital. Hospitals were sterile, depressing, not a good time. And Jeremy Bieber was all about chasing good times, with or without Patty. In the beginning, Jeremy and Patty made sense as a couple.

They were both high schoolers from broken homes with enough baggage for a year-long vacation. Patty was sexually abused as a girl and turned to peddling weed as a teenager. Jeremy was a young drinker who had already inherited some belligerent traits from his alcoholic father. They got fucked up together, and they fought. Made up, and then got fucked up again. Patty and Jeremy played a vicious game of cat and mouse until it wasn't a game anymore. Patty was pregnant, and she was keeping the baby. She laid down the rules when she broke the news to Jeremy.

If he wanted to stay in the picture, that meant he had to be pregnant too. No more fighting, no more drinking and partying. Jeremy didn't have to think too long about it. He went out and got trash that same night. Patty powered through her pregnancy without Jeremy. She cut the drinking, quit the drugs, took parenting classes, attended counseling. Eventually, Patty invited Jeremy. to join her for a single Amaz class.

He walked out on her immediately. Locked up in jail or not, it was clear Jeremy was never going to be by Patty's side in the maternity ward. She gave birth to Justin without him when she was just 17 years old. It would be a month before Jeremy would meet his firstborn son, in years before he committed to actually being a parent. He scheduled visits with Justin and then blew him off, claimed he found Jesus and wanted to recover and then got loaded.

committed himself to Patty as a family man and then cheated on her. He ran hot and cold until Justin was four years old, when Jeremy stepped up to the plate enough to take Justin every Wednesday and every weekend. He focused on a kind of good times that was more family-friendly. Jeremy focused on music. He taught Justin how to play his favorite songs on the guitar, easy GDC chord classics like Bob Dylan's knocking on Heaven's Door. He'd tell 8-year-old Justin to rap.

Rap that Tupac verse, and Justin would just start spitting Thug's mansion like a pro. While Justin learned about music, Jeremy learned what it meant to share good times without some kind of substance. Then came the fame. The riches, the status, the luxuries that would have been unheard of for the Beavers just a few years ago. Justin's tour revenue and royalties snowballed into a heap of wealth that he happily shared with Jeremy. Justin treated his dad to a monthly allowance rumored to be as high as $50,000. He even paid Jeremy's rent in Canada and forked over extra cash when Jeremy's pets damaged the house. And when Justin turned 18, Jeremy turned 18 again too.

Justin's new adulthood hit the reset button on Jeremy's behavior. Suddenly, he could share more than just music with his son. They could share bottles, cars, lavish parties, get matching tattoos. Jeremy's good times were back and they were great times now because he and his affluent son could bro out like the world was their frat house. Their relationship fascinated the media. News sites painted Jeremy as a deadbeat dad who crept out of the woodwork once his son went platinum, no matter how much Justin denied it. Who was the parent in this relationship and who was the child? Maybe they were a little bit of both.

Maybe they were a little bit of each other. A little bit of history. Repeating. January 1997, Jeremy Bieber is charged with one count of assault or causing bodily harm. 90 days in jail, two years probation. March, 1999, Jeremy Bieber fails to comply with probation. 21 more days in jail, two more years of probation. November, 2002, Jeremy Bieber, another assault charge, this time, with a weapon.

The case was dismissed in 2004. Jeremy Bieber got off easy that time. But his son might not get so lucky. He knew what he had to do. It would be easier this way. Simpler and less dramatic. Well, if the goddamn paparazzi would get off his back for a few minutes. Justin Bieber elbowed his way through the crowd and into a police station.

He had to give the cops what they wanted. Himself. He wasn't in Florida anymore. He was back home in Toronto, turning himself in so the police could hit him. with one charge of assault over a scuffle with a limo driver the year prior. And it was still fucking January 2014, another mishap in the month that would not end. If Justin Bieber didn't cut this out on his own, maybe the U.S. government would nudge him in the right direction.

While Justin posted bail in January 2014, a handful of pissed off Americans posted a petition to the White House website asking the Obama administration to revoke Justin's green card. First of all, get fucking lives, people. This petition that they created, it painted Justin as a drugged-up, washed-up danger to the nation's young people who needed to be removed immediately. 100,000 people signed the petition in less than a week. In a few months, that number grew to over a quarter million. This new Justin Bieber was officially unrecognizable to the public. His new criminal record escalated his behavior from obnoxious to immoral. Justin buried baby beavers so deep into the ground so deep into his own mind that he was becoming someone else, someone just like Jeremy.

Their tattoos and overindulgent lifestyles were already identical. Now they had matching criminal charges too. And Justin's reputation was going up in smoke. The pilots fumbled for their oxygen mass. Pull the mass down from the ceiling. Fastened it to your head with the elastic straps and pull them tight, nice and steep. snug. The pilots heard those instructions so many times that they knew them inside and out and backwards, but they never thought they'd ever have to actually use them. Today, they didn't have a choice.

Justin Bieber's leased Gulfstream 4 private jet didn't just wreak of smoke, it succumbed to it. It didn't matter how many times the pilots told Justin, Jeremy, and their crew to snuff out the joints and save him for later. They smoked all the way from Toronto to New Jersey. So-called rules in the air were just, just like so-called rules of the road. They couldn't bring two Bieber men down. As for the officials waiting for them at the airport, that was a different story. Someone on board must have snitched.

An entire squad of government officials were waiting at the gate. DEA reps, men from customs, border protection agents, and just regular-ass cops. They all witnessed a wave of marijuana smoke wash over them when Justin and Jeremy deplained. Ironically, for the crew, the smoke didn't matter to the authorities. What did matter was whether or not Justin and Jeremy were smart enough to make sure there

weren't any leftovers from their sky-high party. The two well-trained drug dogs at the gate could sniff out any last seed or stem like trufflepicks. But as they nose their way through the jet and Justin's luggage, there wasn't a nug in sight. Without anything to seize, the authorities were forced to let both Bieber men go. America's so-called enemy had landed. The security guard loomed over Justin Bieber's bed. He knew the drill, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.

He fumbled in the darkness to find an arm and then placed his thumb over Justin's wrist. And then he waited and waited and waited some more. Still alive. Thank God. On the inside, however, Justin felt like he was dying. His team had more to worry about than pot on. on planes. Pot couldn't kill you. Pills could. Justin forced himself into a rut with his own habits. Wake up and light up. Grab some pills and whatever's in your glass and drink up. That unique breakfast gave him the drive to get up and get out of bed. That meant his team had to make their

own routine to monitor Justin's drug use. They had to check Justin's pulse every so often in night. Just in case, you know, no one dared finish that sentence. The guards were careful to never disturb Justin while he slept. But the check-ins were an alarming wake-up call. The name Justin Bieber used to make people light up. Now it made more than a quarter million people fear for an entire nation's children. When he was a boy, Justin believed he was here to sing

and bring other people joy. Instead, he brought them shame, anxiety, and disappointment. There was nothing manly or mature about that. It was time for a change to take the next exit out of the fast lane and slowed down enough to enjoy the view. An old friend was calling Justin to camp out at his place for a proper detox, not just from the drugs, from everything. Justin needed to go back to where he began,

back to the simplicity of singing for the sake of making music. He packed his bags for New Jersey again, solo this time. He wasn't hanging out the Jeremy Bieber way. For the next six weeks, he'd have a different role model, a pastor friend from a church in Manhattan, the same friend who baptized him back in 2010, back when most of the world still found Justin wholesome. Justin hunkered down in the privacy of his friend's home

and got sober the old-fashioned way. Cold turkey, no coaches, no AA, no classes. Justin never told the press much more about those few weeks in New Jersey. He didn't have to. What came next? Explained everything. Sobriety cleared the smoke that had been clouding Justin's mind. It made him musical again instead of overly macho.

He went back into the studio as a reformed man, eager to make people smile again. And the title of his next album said it all. He called it, Purpose. Purpose isn't something you're born with. It's something you search for and fight to protect. Boy Beaver knew his voice was his purpose, and then he squandered it for the chance to prove how much. much of a man he was. When Justin dropped his 2015 single, Sorry, he said it was an apology

for his former girlfriend, Selena Gomez. Maybe that was the truth. But the public knew he had plenty of other crimes to atone for. Sorry was only the first part of his penance. In 2015, Justin Bieber took his foot off the gas and shifted out of the fast lane for real. He turned away from not just drag racing in the street, but from drugs. And although these days, he's not shy about smoking weed, his changed behavior was the actual true apology. Well, that and a $50,000 donation to a charity called Our Kids as part of a plea bargain for his DUI.

Fast cars don't make you a real man. Neither does assault or torturing a flight crew. Being an adult means you have the power to make shitty choices. Choices like speeding toward an early demise at 4 in the morning. But you can make other choices too. You can turn the car around. No more crashes. No more scandal.

And no more disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan. And this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

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