And Finally

Bieber criticised for Anne Frank Museum note

By | Published on Monday 15 April 2013

Justin Bieber

Perhaps next time Justin Bieber could send a look-a-like or hologram to do his European tour for him, that way he’d stop doing and saying things that generate ever more reams of criticism.

The singer has further pissed off the world (minus the Beliebers, obviously) this weekend after his European tour reached Amsterdam, and the Bieber – as every good Canadian teen back-packing their way around Europe should – visited The Anne Frank House.

The Dutch museum, of course, honours one of the most famous victims of The Holocaust of the Third Reich, the teenage girl who documented her experiences living in cramped hidden rooms with her family in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to escape persecution in the Nazi occupied Netherlands. Her diary was published after the Second World War, and after her death from typhoid in a concentration camp aged fifteen.

Bieber’s visit to the museum will do much to spread Frank’s important story to a new generation, which is presumably why the museum reported on his visit on their official Facebook page, complete with the few lines he’d written in their visitors’ book.

Which is where the new criticism stems from. The pop star’s note in the book started off well with the line “truly inspiring to be able to come here”, but then failed at the second and third hurdle with the follow up “Anne was a great girl; hopefully she would have been a belieber”.

Of course had Frank been a teen in Amsterdam in 2013 rather than during the more horrific period of history in which she lived, perhaps she would have been a Justin Bieber fan. But few outside the star’s core fanbase thought such a self-centred remark was really the best way to express just how inspiring he had found Frank’s story.

Though, of course, few other nineteen year olds in the world have to endure having every stupid thing they say or write scrutinised in quite this way, and if they did, perhaps the Bieber wouldn’t look quite such the self-absorbed idiot he has frequently seemed on this particular European adventure.

The Anne Frank House added a further Facebook update this morning, saying: “The Anne Frank House was pleased to welcome Justin Bieber to the Anne Frank House last Friday. We think it is very positive that he took the time and effort to visit our museum. He was very interested in the story of Anne Frank and stayed for over an hour. We hope that his visit will inspire his fans to learn more about her life and hopefully read the diary”.



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