Vinay Menon: Justin Bieber should no longer be ‘scared to death’ of Judge Judy. He should be thanking her for the tough love

Imagine if Judge Judy was your neighbour.

You’re pruning hedges and spot her peeking out a window from behind a slightly open curtain, one eye watching you, the other judging you.

Then you need a cup of sugar. But you dare not ring her doorbell over fears of a wrathful deliberation on personal responsibility as it pertains to sucrose stocking: “A cake needs ingredients, yes? But you didn’t do a pantry inventory before breaking out the mixing bowls? You need to learn a lesson. Judgment is for me not giving you sugar! GOODNIGHT!”

Fortunately, most of us will never be neighbours with anyone who makes $47 million a year and will not hesitate to take a chopper to work even if the rotor wash does a real number on our prized rhododendrons.

Unfortunately for Justin Bieber, he is not like us.

Many moons ago, the Biebs and the Judge were neighbours.

This was when the singer was in his Bad Boy phase. Remember when he was urinating in bistro buckets and drop-kicking paparazzi? He once visited Germany with an undocumented monkey and the poor thing – Mally, the capuchin, not Justin, the primate – was confiscated at customs and hastily exiled to a zoo.

Justin spit on fans. He egged houses. He got hopped up on substances and ran riot in foreign countries. He was busted for a DUI. He was out of control.

Judge Judy was having none of it. She called him out.

This is a woman, now 80, with a hair-trigger temper and zero patience for scofflaws and anyone who flouts the rules of polite society. I have seen her face, reading glasses pushed down her nose, twist into a fleshy tsunami of rage as she berates a plaintiff or defendant over a fender-bender dispute with such ferocity, I feared Bailiff Byrd might wet himself on syndicated TV.

When it comes to horror, Freddy Krueger has got nothing on Judge Judy.

As she recalled this week to Access Hollywood of former neighbour Bieber: “He’s scared to death of me. There was a period of time before he grew up, when he was foolish. And doing foolish things.”

Forget pruning hedges or cups of sugar. Imagine making the scandal tabloids every week when your neighbour is Judge-freaking-Judy.

That’s like being a vegan and living next door to Colonel Sanders.

Justin was so scared of Judy, he asked his security detail to keep tabs on her whereabouts: “I understood that he was paying the front door people to let them know when I was there, coming and going, so he wouldn’t have to bump into me.”

I don’t blame him. After she said that to Access Hollywood, she cackled like a ravenous hyena. Even her laugh is the stuff of Stephen King.

But you know what? Justin Bieber should no longer be scared to death of Judge Judy – he should be thanking her for the tough love.

As a society, we now have a mass allergy to bareboned criticism. It’s a shame. But in this woke fantasy land of “microaggressions” and “safe spaces,” tough love is roughly equivalent to bodily assault.

Nobody wants to be told they are behaving badly, especially when they are.

But whatever Judith Sheindlin said to Justin Bieber as they made tense small talk around a gold fountain spraying imported iceberg water, it obviously helped.

Remember the pandemic onset when experts talked of “flattening the curve”?

That’s what Bieber did in his own life. A decade ago, when I was offering him tough love in this space, his futured seemed grim. If asked to predict what he’d be doing in 2022, I would’ve guessed making origami penguins in prison.

Give the kid credit for flattening the curve of this possibly tragic trajectory.

Bieber quietly ceased being a public menace. He settled down and, four years ago, married the lovely Hailey Baldwin, a woman as level as an airport runway. He became a religious man. God is obviously a good influence on him. Now if Bieber is tempted to guzzle sizzurp and vandalize an ancient monument, God whispers: “No, dude. No. Stay home and do a jigsaw puzzle with Hailey.”

When they were neighbours, Judge Judy had the wisdom of an elder, another cultural benefit we have lost now that ageism is the last acceptable form of discrimination. I don’t get it. Why would anyone not want to vicariously absorb the invaluable experiences of others who have successfully navigated more time on this planet? I make a point of remaining close to friends who are much older than me. I can’t tell you how many mistakes I have dodged just by listening.

Judge Judy could have ignored the misguided and self-destructive antics of her young neighbour. But she didn’t see Bieber as a superstar. I doubt she could name one of his songs. She saw a lost soul in dire need of tough love. So, she obliged, even at the risk of suddenly giving him recurring nightmares in which she’s dressed as an angry clown who stops by to scream about how his piranha grotto is in clear violation of municipal code.

For a long while, no one in the singer’s inner circle intervened to point out his life was off-key. Fortunately, he had a super-scary neighbour who did.

Cue the happy ending.

God bless Justin Bieber. God bless Judge Judy.

And God bless tough love.

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