“If You Go To Taco Bell, That Doesn’t Make You A Taco”: The Wisdom Of Justin Bieber’s ‘Complex’ Interview

Carl Williott | September 28, 2015 9:30 am

True story: Last week, a few of the Idolator editors took their headphones off long enough to get lunch together. As is tradition, the topic of Justin Bieber came up at some point, and we were all in agreement that his “bad boy” period was massively blown out of proportion. So what, he drunkenly pissed into a bucket and randomly cursed out a former US president — that’s literally the entirety of the American college experience! Well, it just so happens that today (September 28), Complex revealed its October/November Justin Bieber cover story, and in the interview he addresses the piss bucket controversy.

In the wide-ranging interview, the star also discusses his breakup with Selena Gomez, his arrest and his faith (like, so much talk about his faith). And because we’re pretty excited about his new album, we’d just like to highlight some of Biebs’ wisest, deepest quotes from the story so that you’ll never again have to ask “what do you mean” when we’re out here defending the guy.

Behold these quotes displaying the wisdom of the Biebs.

On Selena Gomez: “We were so in love. Nothing else mattered. We were all about each other. But when it’s like that and you get your value from that, people will always disappoint you. Your girl or your dude, they’re always going to disappoint you. Your full identity can’t be in that person.”

On love: “Love is a choice. Love is not a feeling. People have made it seem in movies that it’s this fairy tale. That’s not what love is. You’re not gonna want to love your girl sometimes but you’re gonna choose to love her. That’s something in life that I had to figure out.”

On the piss bucket: “Honestly, I think the pissing in the bucket wasn’t as big as people made it seem. Just because, dude, think about it. Imagine, you hear that fucking Ozzy Osbourne pisses backstage. Immediately, ‘Oh, he’s a freaking rock star!’ As soon as I do it, ‘He’s being a brat.’ Dude, what is bratty about pissing in a bucket? I had to go piss — we all have to pee. The bathroom was like on the other side, and the dude in the club was like, ‘Just pee here.’ He told me I could and it wasn’t like I was being disrespectful. I feel like that was pretty ostracizing — bigger than it should’ve been.”

On being a Christian and/or taco: “You don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn’t make you a taco.”

On his own hate-ability: “I’d probably be the same way if I was in Canada, seeing this kid driving around in all these fancy cars and shit.”

On the dire state of pop music: “I’ll hear songs on the radio, and I’m not really a fan of what’s going on right now in music. I’ll hear it and go, ‘Ugh, why is this being played so much right now?'”

On his learning curve: “It’s been a cool journey, an awesome learning experience. I wouldn’t take back anything. I wouldn’t do anything over again. I would do it all the same way. I’m not going to say I’m sorry for the things that I’ve done because I think that it allows me to tell a story.”

On eliminating the yes-men: “When you get famous, you get people that will encourage whatever you do. You’ll do something and they’ll be like, ‘That was dope, Justin!’ When you’re young especially, you don’t know who’s bullshitting you. I’m gonna make sure that I don’t have people around me who make me look like an idiot. You don’t understand—that’s a normal thing for human beings, but I never had that in my life. I didn’t even have that with my parents.”

On science: “Science makes a lot of sense.”

On the big bang theory: “Then I start thinking—wait, the ‘big bang.’ For a ‘big bang’ to create all this is more wild to think about than thinking about there being a God. Imagine putting a bunch of gold into a box, shaking up the box, and out comes a Rolex. It’s so preposterous once people start saying it.”

Read the full interview over at Complex. It’s pretty fascinating as far as celebrity puff pieces go.