March 5, 2013 8:40

Justin Bieber apologises for late arrival at London concert

The singer says 'no excuse' for being late for performance at O2 Arena

Photo: PA

Justin Bieber has apologised to fans he angered yesterday (March 4) by arriving onstage at his UK tour's first London O2 Arena show almost two hours later than planned.

The doors of the Greenwich venue opened at 6.30pm and the Canadian pop sensation was due to begin performing at 8.30pm. He finally appeared onstage at 10.20pm, by which time the audience were loudly booing. With the support acts finished, they had been listening to Michael Jackson songs for more than an hour. It meant that Bieber had just 40 minutes to perform before the venue's usual 11pm curfew kicked in. The singer instead carried on until midnight.

Angry parents took to Twitter to protest the singer's late arrival – not least because the show was taking place on a school night. It meant many parents were forced to remove their children after hearing just one or two songs, and The Evening Standard reports that many fans left in tears. Other reports say many children in the audience had fallen asleep. Former Coronation Street star Wendy Peters was among those inside the arena. "I shall have an extremely moody daughter tomorrow… Livid !!" she tweeted.

Posting a series of messages on Twitter this morning (March 5) Bieber said there was "no excuse" for his tardy arrival and appearing to accuse the media of exaggerating the situation. "Last night i was scheduled after 3 opening acts to go on stage at 9:35 not 8:30 but because of some technical issues i got on at 10:10 so i was 40 min late to stage. There is no excuse for that and I apologize for anyone we upset," he tweeted. Adding: "However it was great show and Im proud of that."

i never have any intent to upset or let anyone down. and Im not okay with things being exaggerated. once again sorry for anyone upset.
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) March 5, 2013

Bieber has been touring the UK for the past week and will perform a second show at the O2 Arena this evening. During his stay in the UK, Bieber's behaviour has been erratic. Celebrating turning 19 on March 1, he described it as his "worst birthday" when his underage guests were turned away from London's Cirque du Soir club.

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