LONDON (AFP) ― Teen superstar Justin Bieber faced fury from his British fans on Tuesday after he showed up late for a sold-out concert in London.
The Canadian singer played the first of four nights at London’s O2 Arena on Monday, but hundreds in the audience took to Twitter to vent their frustration after he failed to appear on stage until nearly 10:30 p.m.
The 19-year-old insisted on Tuesday that he was only 40 minutes late ― but many fans said they had been led to believe he would be onstage at 8:30 p.m., making him almost two hours late.
“I was 40 min late to stage. There is no excuse for that and I apologize for anyone we upset,” Bieber wrote on his Twitter account.
“However it was great show and I’m proud of that,” he said, adding that the delay was due to “technical issues.”
But parents of children in the 20,000-seat stadium complained that the singer kept young fans waiting on a school night ― with some forced to miss the gig altogether in order to catch the last trains out of London.
“I’m never going to a gig by Justin Bieber ever again,” Louise Cooper, who had to leave the concert early to take her child home, told BBC television.
“Two hours we had to wait, and then because we had to go home early, all we heard were the new songs from the new album that we don’t know.”
Another mother, Charlotte Stapleton, told the broadcaster: “He arrived about two hours late on stage and there was no apology at all from the singer.”
