Nickelback's Chad Kroeger offers Justin Bieber some tough love

by John Lucas on February 20th, 2015 at 3:49 PM

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As the lead singer of Nickelback, Chad Kroeger gets an unbelievable (and arguably unwarranted) amount of flak. But at least he can console himself with the fact that he's not Justin Bieber. (Well, he can also console himself with the fact that his band is one of the most commercially successful music acts of the past two decades and has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. His 12 Junos, seven Billboard Awards, seven MuchMusic Video Awards, and two American Music Awards probably help ease the pain too.)

Bieber has an even worse reputation. Sure, Nickelback was sixth on TheRichest.com's list of The 10 Worst Canadian Celebrities, but the Biebs was number 2. (And in case anyone's curious, Kroeger's wife, Avril Lavigne, ranked seventh.)

Bieber's many misdeeds of the past few years (some of which we have reported on) have not gone unnoticed by Kroeger. In a morning-show interview with Australia's NXFM today, the Nickelback frontman said "I think that he’s going to look back at this time in his life and he’s going be ashamed of the things that he’s done," before adding "It’s really too bad because he is talented and it’s just a bit of a letdown."

A few media outlets (we're looking at you, TMZ) have classified the older entertainer's comments as "dissing", but we'll go easier on all parties and just call it a bit of much-needed tough love. After all, Kroeger didn't actually say anything insulting about his 20-year-old countryman. He merely lamented the fact that Bieber experienced great fame and wealth at an age at which he was ill-equipped to deal with his success.

"You’ve got to be careful when you’re handing someone that young the keys to the kingdom," Kroeger opined.

There may be hope for the kid yet. In late January, Bieber appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (see video below) and discussed his upcoming Comedy Central Roast: "I think it's just cool to be able to laugh at yourself, you know? I've done some things that might not have been the greatest... I just want to be able to laugh about it and kind of just own up to some of the things."