Justin Bieber sold his music catalog for a jaw-dropping $200 million, but a new TMZ documentary claims the real reason behind the massive deal wasn’t just a business move – it was financial desperation.
According to TMZ Investigates: What Happened to Justin Bieber?, the pop superstar was allegedly on the brink of financial collapse in 2022, and selling his entire catalog was his last-ditch effort to avoid going completely broke.
The Hulu doc dives deep into how Justin Bieber, once estimated to be worth between $500 million and $1 billion, ended up needing to cash out his entire discography. TMZ’s Harvey Levin claims Bieber’s camp admitted in private calls that things had gotten that bad. “He was on the verge of financial collapse,” Levin says in the doc. “That’s why he had to sell his catalog.”
The catalog deal went down in December 2022, with Hipgnosis Songs Capital dropping $200 million to acquire the rights to nearly 300 songs from Bieber’s hit-filled career. But Levin says Bieber was so strapped for cash, he couldn’t even wait until January 2023 to take advantage of a potential tax break. Despite Scooter Braun – Bieber’s former manager – advising him to hold off on the deal, Justin reportedly told him, “I gotta sell it now.” That’s how dire things allegedly were.
How did Bieber, a guy who has toured the world, dropped countless chart-toppers, and lived like royalty, end up this close to broke? The documentary points a big finger at his Justice World Tour cancellation. Sources say the pop star had already spent big on the production, which included a fleet of eight tour buses – one of which he supposedly renovated for $2 million – plus private jet rides and multiple luxury homes paid for in full. TMZ staff even claim he would have made $90 million had he finished the tour, which was cut short in September 2022 so Bieber could focus on his health.
It gets messier. Around the time the sale went down, The Hollywood Reporter also reported that Bieber had racked up millions in debt after canceling the tour. A rep for Bieber clapped back hard, calling those reports “clickbait stupidity” fueled by ex-team members who were “disappointed they no longer work with Justin.” They insisted that the stories were full of inaccurate assumptions and that Justin was simply following “the right path.”
Still, the concerns aren’t just financial. A source close to Bieber told People that he’s currently “facing a lot of different demons” and making bad decisions that are affecting his relationships, finances, and business. The same insider added that people close to him are genuinely worried about his mental and emotional state.
Through it all, Bieber has remained quiet. No official statement has been made addressing the claims from the documentary, and his reps had no comment when asked directly by People.
But this revelation, if true, changes the narrative around the $200 million sale. What looked like a smart business move might’ve actually been a survival move. Bieber, now 31, and a new dad to son Jack Blues with wife Hailey Baldwin Bieber, seems to be navigating through a storm behind closed doors.
Whether or not every detail in the documentary holds up, it paints a pretty bleak picture of what’s going on behind the curtain of Bieber’s glamorous pop life. And if the claims are true, then Justin Bieber sold his music catalog not to expand his empire – but to save it from crumbling.
