I want to drink corona in Italy with Justin Bieber

Joan Summers

Rome: The internationally crowned Prince of Pop just released a surprise album, SWAG, that was just about the only thing PAPER staff have listened to this past weekend. It’s a massive success, all things considered, and sorely needed for ol’ Bieber after a run of bad press this last year surrounding his marriage, parenting, friendships, and often bizarre Instagram habits.

But such is life for a child pop star turned adult pop star who’s never lived anywhere but under a microscope peered through by billions. Instead of blitzing the talk show circuit to promote his latest hit, he’s instead jettisoned himself and his family out across the Atlantic, where they’re enjoying sunny skies and Italian vistas.

I think he’s got it all figured out!

In a new post Monday, Bieber shared a peek into what’s been happening on vacation. Let’s play I Spy: I spy alfredo, I spy Corona, I spy his baby, and I spy the Italian coastline. Mostly, I’m continuing to spy on that Corona, which is all I want right now, most of all with Bieber. Doesn’t that sound like a dream? Cheesy pasta and Corona beer with a man that’s dominated pop music for over a decade.

Now, because I’m something of a scholar when it comes to Bieber. Specifically, I’m a scholar of his deep relationship to Corona beer. In an Instagram Story back in 2019, he shared on Instagram Stories that he was allergic to gluten, and that there would be “No more Coronas unless they make gluten free beer like this! Sad day.” I only know this because it was breaking news for the website I wrote for at the time, considering I was its head gossip columnist. I remember thinking it was funny that I sourced the information from the official celiac.com website, which had its own gossip columnist for the famously gluten-intolerant.

Fans will also remember it was Corona that also brought him back together with his wife, Hailey Bieber, who he now shares a kid with. During a 2018 appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Bieber demonstrated that she could open Coronas with her teeth.

In 2020, on a subsequent appearance, she told Fallon: “The next morning, after the interview had aired, I got a certain phone call from a certain someone. And it was a little like, ‘Hey, how are you? I saw you on Jimmy Fallon last night. You were looking really good. I loved that trick that you did. I had no idea that you can do that. It was so cool.’ Cut to, I’m now married to that certain someone.”

While everyone roasts Bieber online for enjoying an ice cold Corona in Italy, I say: Let these crazy kids have their fun! I’m sure Coronas are something of a love language for them, which is leagues better than all those back-to-back Instagram Stories about how she’d never be on the cover of Vogue.