BLANK OUT: Performing live on the “Today” show, Justin Bieber mangled “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” (TIMUR/EAGLEPRESS)
Pop superstar Justin Bieber, who was accused of lip-syncing his hit “Baby” on the 2010 “Video Music Awards,” was definitely singing live on yesterday’s “Today” show — because he forgot some words to “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”
The holiday ditty — given a rap-style treatment by the 17-year-old Bieber — is featured on his new Christmas CD.
He used the song to close out his “Today” show appearance — surrounded by hundreds of screaming, adoring fans who’d camped out all night in the rain to see their idol.
But he blanked several times on the words, repeating the line, “He’s making a list” to sub for the correct lines (“He sees you when you’re sleeping” and “You’d better watch out . . . ”).
At other times during the four-minute performance, Bieber — who was jumping around the stage and occasionally ventured into the crowd — just didn’t sing at all, coming in only after the words were repeated by his backup singers.
The reports of Bieber’s 2010 “VMA” lip-syncing, which ran rampant on the Internet, were never definitively proven.
Bieber never publicly commented on the matter, which was quietly forgotten.