Fat Joe has revealed that he was the person who put up bail money for Justin Bieber when the pop sensation was arrested for drag racing in Miami Beach in 2014.
During the most recent episode of Joe and Jada, the “All the Way Up” artist recounted getting a phone call from his close friend and late Terror Squad member Raul Conde, who needed someone to cover bail for the then 19-year-old after what he called “driving crazy around Miami.”
“It wasn’t no money. It was nothing,” Joe explained around the 18:50 mark in the video above. “Couple of hundred dollars, a thousand dollars.”
Joe mentioned that he and Bieber had regular conversations back then, but things shifted after The Bronx rapper offered some guidance following the arrest. “He calls me to thank me, and starts saying, ‘Yo, I’m a gangster now,” Joe recalled, adding, “I said, ‘Yo, Justin. Listen bro. You gotta stop. We don’t want you gangster.”
Fat Joe acknowledged he could have played along with Bieber to stay on his good side, but chose instead to be the voice of wisdom. “We don’t want you on the news. We don’t want you getting arrested. We want you to succeed. You’re Justin Bieber!” he explained. “My daughter worships you! We all love you! And that kinda messed up my relationship with him at that moment.”
Joe drew from his own life to illustrate why jail time shouldn’t be viewed as something to brag about. The 54-year-old admitted feeling completely overwhelmed when he was suddenly locked up in Miami and found himself surrounded by 2,000 inmates who were yelling at him.
“I already know walking up in there, I said, ‘Oh man, somebody gonna run up on me real quick with a knife, talking about you gotta pay whatever, whatever, and I actually got intimidated,” he recalled.
