Fat Joe has shared that he was the one who posted bail for Justin Bieber when the pop star was taken into police custody for drag racing in Miami Beach back in 2014.
On the latest episode of Joe and Jada, the “All the Way Up” rapper recalled receiving a call from longtime friend and late Terror Squad member Raul Conde, who was looking for someone to bail out the then 19-year-old for what he described as “driving crazy around Miami.”
“It wasn’t no money. It was nothing,” Joe said around the 18:50 mark in the video above. “Couple of hundred dollars, a thousand dollars.”
Joe claimed he and Bieber used to speak often, but their relationship changed when The Bronx rapper shared some words of advice following the arrest. “He calls me to thank me, and starts saying, ‘Yo, I’m a gangster now,” Joe claimed, adding, “I said, ‘Yo, Justin. Listen bro. You gotta stop. We don’t want you gangster.”
Fat Joe admitted he could have encouraged Bieber in the hopes of remaining in his good graces, but instead, he tried to be a voice of reason. “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 said. “My daughter worships you! We all love you! And that kinda messed up my relationship with him at that moment.”
Joe used his own personal experience to explain why going to jail should not be seen as a badge of pride. The 54-year-old confessed he felt the most intimidated when he was unexpectedly sent to jail in Miami, and walked into an area where 2,000 guys were screaming 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 remembered.
