Did Justin Bieber Sandbag Coachella on Purpose? Here's What the Experts Are Saying
Justin Bieber's Coachella set on Saturday has people talking, and not exactly in the way the pop star probably hoped.
Bieber, 32, headlined the festival on April 11, spending most of his time on stage running through tracks from his 2025 albums SWAG and SWAG II with little more than a laptop behind him. He did pull out some of his bigger hits, but only briefly, playing a short medley that came and went before the crowd could really enjoy it.
For a lot of people who showed up expecting something iconic, often dubbed and hyped up as "Bieberchella," it landed flat. And social media made that very clear, considering Bieber was paid a pretty penny to perform.
"Mind you this is the highest paid Coachella performance of all time," one Instagram user said, referring to Bieber's $10 million dollar payday.
Another shared, "I wish I more easily amused. Maybe I'm not a true fan. I'm not gonna lie, coming from Sabrina's production to this was truly lackluster."
Some, however, thought the move was genius, with comments like, "This was genius and more intimate to his true fans," and "i loveddd watching him sing along with his younger self."
The theory that took off almost immediately was that Bieber's hands were tied. He sold his entire music catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Capital for over $200 million back in 2022, and plenty of outlets ran with the idea that the sale was the reason he could not lean into his old material the way fans wanted-but instead found a loophole via his laptop.
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While it made sense on the surface, it was also, according to people who actually know how these deals work, not true.
Billboard Canada got a source close to the catalog deal on record about it. "That's nonsense," they said in an article shared Monday, April 13. "There are no restrictions on what he can or can't do in live performance."
The outlet noted that selling your publishing rights does not mean you cannot perform those songs. Venues handle live performance licensing automatically, and that it has nothing to do with who owns the masters. And if you pay attention, Bieber actually did perform several of the songs included in the sale that night.
So if the catalog excuse does not hold up, what actually happened? Was this Bieber making a deliberate choice to push his new era front and center, regardless of what the crowd wanted? Was it a genuine miscalculation?
What everyone can seem to agree on is that the conversation is far from over, and Bieber has another shot at it when Weekend 2 kicks off April 18.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 1:13 PM.