Entertainment

Bieber, 5SOS & More Recreate Yeezy's "Famous"

by Michelle McGahan

Much like that version of The Last Supper painting that features '50s icons like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean in place of Jesus and the gang, there is now a parody of Kanye West's "Famous" video starring Justin Bieber, Nick Jonas, 5 Seconds of Summer, Meghan Trainor, Carly Rae Jepsen, Troye Sivan and seemingly every pop star under the sun (remember Craig David???) In fact, part of what's so great about the vid — which was created by the geniuses across the pond at BBC Radio 1 — is that instead of seeing creepy-ass mannequin versions of naked celebs, the stars in the parody are busy mocking themselves (and probably even Kanye West).

The Biebs arguably does the best job at poking fun at both himself and the rapper's overinflated ego, which really soars to controversial extremes on the track. After all, this is the song that contains the line, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b*tch famous," just in case you forgot.

In the vid, Bieber is lying in bed next to British singer Cheryl (Liam Payne is probably feeling jealous somewhere), when she jokingly asks him who is hotter, her or JB?

"Probably me," he dead-panned. "No, I'm just messing with you. But I do have a perfect symmetrical face."

And when Cheryl asks for him to compliment her, the Biebs' sweet words are, well, really more for himself.

"You're kind. You're handsome," he replied. "You have a nice jacket. You are fit. You have nice shoes. You've got a good haircut."

"Nice little jugular action you have going here," he added, grabbing his Adam's apple. OK, Yeezy incarnate.

While the whole thing is basically a celeb-filled advertisement for Nick Grimshaw's morning radio show, it's also a bit of commentary of the original "Famous" vid. All of the artists in the video (lying in a stark white bed in various pairings) mock themselves in one way or another — Meghan Trainor and CRJ specifically respond in their respective song titles; at one point Ashton Irwin literally refers to his band as "BudgetSOS" — but when you have Bieber hamming up his own ego, it's impossible not to think of the grandiose ways in which West refers to himself, especially on that track.

Sure, Bieber's egotistical comments ("you're handsome," the line about the "perfect symmetrical face") don't even hold a candle to West's boastful lyrics. But they're ridiculously over-the-top enough that it can't help but remind you (or at least me) of Yeezy's entire attitude throughout "Famous," which is really just the same attitude he puts into everything TBH. The whole song is about how he made other stars famous and how various women he's slept with are mad because they're not famous and how the guy down at the grocery store wishes he could be as cool as West.

So while JB's lines definitely do a solid job at making fun of his own ego, they also serve a dual purpose — and totally, even inadvertently, mock Yeezy too. And I'm here for that.