Pop star Bieber charged after drag racing in Florida

Bieber is shown in this combo of booking photos provided by the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department in Miami.

Reuters/Miami Beach, Florida

Teen pop star Justin Bieber was arrested in South Florida early yesterday on a drink-driving charge after he was caught drag racing on a main thoroughfare in a rented yellow Lamborghini, police said.

Two SUVs had blocked the road so the 19-year-old Boyfriend singer could race a friend who was driving a rented red Ferrari, Miami Beach police spokeswoman Vivian Hernandez said.

Bieber, who was driving 55mph in a 35mph zone, was also charged with resisting arrest without violence and driving with an expired Georgia driver’s licence, Hernandez said.

The star was “a little belligerent, using some choice words” when police arrested him, Miami Beach Police Chief Raymond Martinez told reporters, but grew co-operative once at the police station.

His friend, identified as a fellow singer named Khalil Sharieff, was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence, according to Hernandez.

Hernandez told AFP that, at the time of his arrest, Bieber was with “a young lady” whose identity she declined to reveal except to say it was not his former girlfriend, actress and singer Selena Gomez.

Hernandez said that no bond had been set so far for Bieber, who over the last few days has kept a high profile while visiting South Florida.

News reports this week said he shelled out tens of thousands of dollars at the local King of Diamonds strip club on Monday night.

Hernandez said that Bieber likely would be allowed to post bail later after being transferred to a different jail.

The police department in the Florida city of Opa-locka said it was investigating the actions of officers who gave Bieber and his entourage an unauthorised escort through traffic after they landed at a local airport earlier this week.

Bieber’s off-stage antics have at times overshadowed his music career in the last year as the Canadian star who shot to fame at age 15 transitions to adulthood.

The drag racing incident is one in a long line of controversial headlines which have tarnished the once clean-cut image of Bieber, who has sold more than 12mn albums since emerging on the music scene in 2009 as a teen sensation.

Just last week, police searched Bieber’s Los Angeles mansion over an egg-throwing attack, seized illegal drugs and arrested one of the singer’s associates.

The 19-year-old Canadian teen idol was accused of causing thousands of dollars in damage to a neighbour’s house after pelting it with eggs.

News reports said that in July, authorities at the US-Canada border confiscated marijuana and drug paraphernalia from one of Bieber’s tour buses.

He was not on board at the time, media reported.

Birber also attracted criticism on a recent tour of Australia after allegedly spraying graffiti on a hotel wall. A tour of South America last year also ran into turbulence, with allegations that he tagged the wall of a Rio de Janeiro hotel and failed to pay a bill in a Buenos Aires nightclub.

Bieber also caused offence by stepping on an Argentine flag thrown onto a stage during a concert. He was evicted from a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires after a room was damaged.

Over the Christmas holidays, Bieber announced via Twitter that he was “officially retiring”.