Justin Bieber cancels remaining tour dates, including 2 Toronto shows, because of 'unforeseen circumstances'
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber has scrapped the remainder of his Purpose world tour, including two dates in Toronto.
A statement on Bieber's website said the cancellation stems from "unforeseen circumstances."
"Justin loves his fans and hates to disappoint them," the statement reads.
"However, after careful consideration he has decided he will not be performing any further dates." It is unclear why Bieber decided to cancel the rest of the shows.
The singer had been set to play back-to-back nights at Toronto's Rogers Centre on Sept. 5 and 6. Other planned stops had included arenas around the United States, Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The statement said tickets will be refunded, but Ticketmaster was still selling them as of Monday afternoon.
Monique Pellerin paid about $225 per ticket for a Toronto show, hoping to go with her younger sister. Her sister's ticket was a birthday gift, so she split the cost with her mom.
The 23-year-old lives in Halifax and had already bought plane tickets to Toronto, so when she got the news Monday, she was pretty upset.
"It would be nice if we had a little more of an explanation to ease some of the frustration," she said. "Hopefully he's OK, but it would be nice if he would share some of the reasoning."
Pellerin said being a Bieber fan is already hard enough: "Whenever I tell somebody I'm a huge Justin Bieber fan, I get this reaction that like, 'You're joking right?' Everybody has a bit of a stigma against him."
"It sucks that we've kind of stuck with him all this time and we finally get to go to a concert and it gets cancelled."
Cancelling tour 'a pretty sedate scandal'
Bieber released Purpose in November 2015 and has played more than 150 shows in support of the album since, including a string of Canadian dates in 2016. He since had a string of hit collaborations like the remix of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's Despacito and his appearance on DJ Khaled's I'm The One.
His bizarre behaviour while on tour has kept him in the spotlight: Bieber stormed off stage during Purpose stops in Manchester and Oslo and cancelled meet-and-greets with fans because they left him "mentally and emotionally exhausted to the point of depression."
Last May, he told his devoted fanbase he was done with taking photos. "I feel like a zoo animal, and I wanna be able to keep my sanity," he said in a Instagram post. And a Chinese official recently said Bieber was not welcome to tour in China because of his bad behaviour.
"We hope Justin Bieber will continue to improve his behaviour as part of his growth, and become a singer truly loved by the public," Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Culture said on its website.
With all the blunders, Bieber's cancellation doesn't come as a surprise to Spin's Anna Gaca; she has written about Bieber's behaviour and his "extraordinarily long" tour.
"It's been really clear to people that he was not always enjoying himself on stage, sort of rambling to the crowd," she told CBC News.
"Bieber has done some questionable things in the past and been arrested and been in fights on video, so cancelling a tour is a pretty sedate scandal."
Bieber's move follows another high profile pop cancellation. Adele called off her London shows earlier this month, telling fans her vocal cords were damaged and hinted she may never tour again.
