NEW YORK — Pop act Justin Bieber suffered the slings and arrows of fellow entertainers from Kevin Hart to Martha Stewart as they skewered his looks, music and public antics during a celebrity roast broadcast on Monday.
Comedy Central's "Roast of Justin Bieber," hosted by Hart, got off to an edgy start, with Hart joking that most of the superstar's fans "are either in middle schools, or standing at least 500 feet away from one."
Hart was also joined by Natasha Leggero, Pete Davidson, Shaquille O'Neal, Snoop Dogg, roast veteran Jeff Ross, Chris D'Elia and Ludacris in lambasting Bieber, 21, over a two-hour special taped in Los Angeles earlier this month.
In keeping with the long tradition of celebrity roasts, off-color, politically incorrect and borderline offensive jokes were the order of the day, mining everything from the Sept. 11 attacks to the Holocaust for humor. The N-word was in wide use.
Referring to Bieber's many tattoos, O'Neal noted one of Jesus Christ and wondered, "Why you got to bring Jesus into this? That man has suffered enough."
Bieber, who wore a blue suit and mostly chuckled at the jokes and occasionally clapped, got the last word, however.
Bieber said he was "new to comedy, but here's a joke, all right? What do you get when you give a teenager $200 million? A bunch of has-beens calling you a lesbian for two hours."
Turning serious, he noted he was "thrown into this at 12 years old," and that "through it all, I lost some of my best qualities. For that, I'm sorry."
Vowing to "turn everything all around," Bieber said, "You have my word I will not end up broken, pathetic, bitter — or sitting on the dais at somebody else's roast.
