Social media has been an important tool in recent years for victims of sexual assault, with more and more men and women coming forward with claims of past abuses. This past weekend, one woman took to Twitter with allegations against Grammy winner and recent Dave guest star Justin Bieber, claiming he had sex with her without content in an Austin hotel room in 2014. However, Bieber made the rare move to deny the accusations directly, and even had actual receipts to back his story up.
A woman who went under the name "Danielle" shared a lengthy claim on Twitter on June 20, 2020 about an alleged incident that supposedly took place on March 9, 2014, when she was 21. Danielle says she and friends were at an Austin event hosted by Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber's manager, when an unidentified man offered them a chance to hang out with Bieber. She claimed that Bieber then took her and her friends back to the Four Seasons hotel, where she and Bieber allegedly went into the bedroom. After some kissing, Danielle claims that Bieber undressed her, ignoring her complaints that things were going too far, and then allegedly forced himself inside her.
Those allegations made the rounds on social media, but the associated account has since been deleted, with Justin Bieber dishing out a 15-tweet thread that offered up his own evidence supposedly proving that Danielle's claims could not have been true. While he did confirm that he was in Austin on March 9, 2014 in order to give fans a surprise SXSW appearance, he pointed out that he was at the event with then-girlfriend Selena Gomez, among other friends.
Justin Bieber, whose life was profiled earlier this year on a hugely popular Hulu docu-series, then shared various news articles and tweets that documented Selena Gomez's presence and their late arrival in Austin. He also brought up a tweet from user @ErinALynch who said she saw Justin Bieber at the Four Seasons on March 10, and then shared her June 22, 2020 clarification that she was talking about the restaurant at the time, and not the hotel.
Then came the Airbnb and hotel receipts, which Justin Bieber shared as alleged further proof that he was not staying at the Four Seasons on the night in question.
Justin Bieber claims that he and Selena Gomez stayed at an Austin Airbnb on March 9 with friends, and then went to a different hotel on the 10th, due to a problem with reservations elsewhere. The pop mega-star even claims his team reached out to the Four Seasons hotel to confirm that Bieber was not a guest on March 9-10, and advised press to do the same for their own inquiries.
A former SNL guest host, Justin Bieber ended his defensive tweet thread by giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone who comes forward with sexual abuse allegations. He then followed that up by hinting that his lawyers are getting involved.
In reference to the faux name being used in the receipts he shared, Justin Bieber also claimed that he would no longer be using the alias Mike Lowery, itself a reference to Will Smith's character from the Bad Boys franchise.
Though Justin Bieber's tweets only directly referenced the tweets from the accuser Danielle, he also faced suspicious accusations from another Twitter user, @ItsNotKadi, who claimed to have also been sexually assaulted by the singer in a hotel room, this time on May 4, 2015. However, Twitter users found multiple discrepancies with Kadi's story. For one, she claims to believe Danielle's story, even though Danielle's allegations supposedly hadn't yet been posted by that point. For another, she claims that it happened in New York City, even though Bieber was publicly reported on being in Los Angeles that day. As well, users have shared a variety of sexually lewd messages Kadi tweeted at Bieber after the date noted in her allegation. That said, her tweets are still active, so there will likely be more to come.
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