“That’s indecent. Talking about a person’s private matters on TV, and publicly forcing someone into discomfort is pure bullying,” a fan slammed the comedian.

Justin Bieber once grabbed major headlines when nude pictures of him holidaying in Bora Bora were published in the media. Months later when the ‘Baby’ singer appeared on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show,’ the veteran singer did what she does best— dive straight into the controversy. DeGeneres inquired, “Speaking of you and your underwear let’s talk about the um the paparazzi shot in Bora Bora…so you are obviously in a private bungalow how did you not see that there were paparazzi?” Bieber explained, “I just didn’t see them I think I wasn’t really looking out for them.” As DeGeneres continued to grill him about his anonymous date, he covered his face in embarrassment.

“You just brought a friend to Bora Bora?” DeGeneres pressed. “Yeah.” “And you are just naked with your friend?” she continued. “Gosh…Stop. You are making me blush, dude,” the ‘Sorry’ singer protested. Bieber confessed that it was his former talent manager Scooter Braun who broke the news. He recalled, “It was like a couple of days later, Scooter hit me. It was like, ‘Yo, I hate to tell you this, but your penis is on the internet.’ I was like, ‘What?’ And so then the first thing I saw was the censored one. And it had the black thing over it. And I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness.’” The ‘Never Say Never’ singer also clarified that he wasn’t dating anyone at the time—the young woman in the background was just a friend.

In response, DeGeneres teased, “Wow. I have friends. I have never seen them naked like that. And they don’t bring me to Bora Bora.” Fans, however, did not like her humiliating Bieber. “Ellen never gets tired of making her guests uncomfortable,” a netizen criticized on YouTube. “I love how he covered his face when he was embarrassed. Lol that was cute but Ellen did have a point,” another opined. “That is indecent. displaying yellow press nude photographs, talking about a person’s private matters on TV, and publicly forcing someone into discomfort is pure bullying,” one slammed. “Wait so how can paparazzi legally share a naked photo of someone without their consent?” remarked another.

The same year, in 2015, while appearing on the ‘Zach Sang & The Gang’ show, Bieber addressed the issue yet again, deeming it a complete invasion of his privacy. According to BBC, his legal team shot a cease and desist letter to the publication demanding it to remove the explicit pictures from its site They claimed that the media outlet had damaged the singer’s reputation. An excerpt from it read, “We recently became informed that your company has obtained and is distributing unauthorized photographs of our client including images showing him without clothing.”