Justin Bieber Makes Jewish Teen a Star
The new Etta James is… 13 years old?
Well, according to Justin Bieber she is. With a few flicks of his fingers last week, the teen heartthrob changed the life of Madison Beer — a 13 year old Jewish singer-songwriter. The twitter correspondence went a little something like this:
Justin: “wow. 13 years old! She can sing. Great job. #futurestar”
Madison: “OMG. I CANT BREATHE. IM GONNA PUKE! IS THIS HAPPENING!?!?!?”
The result?
By the next morning she had 18,000 Twitter followers. Over the course of the week, that number rose to 30,000. Scrolling through her Twitter feed feels like an experiment in scary adolescence.
Online Twitter personas such as Follow me, Justin!, Justin Bieber Fans and The Only Mrs.Bieber can be seen on her twitter feed pleading with the 13 year-old to follow and befriend them. One particularly eager individual, who calls himself The Swag King (@jbiebsswagboy), tweeted at Beer that he “can’t sleep because you haven’t retweeted and followed me yet. It would mean so much to me <3”
Referring to her 30,000 new followers as her “best friends,” the young star-to-be seems to be enjoying her first few minutes in the limelight.
Singing Etta James’s “At Last” in a sparkly silver dress, Beer has come a long way from the first recording she posted on her YouTube page — which shows her singing Christina Aguilera’s “Hurt” while sitting cross-legged in bed, dressed in printed flannel pajamas. Though Bieber lauded her Etta James cover in his tweet, the Shmooze was pretty impressed by her earlier cover of “Killing Me Softly.” Her deep soulful eyes and a mature vocal range make it hard to believe that Beer hasn’t even entered high school.
Rumor has it that she may have been signed to Bieber’s label, and media outlets have dubbed her the next Carly Rae Jepson.
How did we found out she was Jewish? On Twitter, of course!
A concerned fan, Austin Mohane, asked her if she was Jewish, citing the multiple pictures she had posted on her account at various bat mitzvahs.
Beer responded, as any 13 year old on Twitter would, with an enthusiastic, “yes haahha! #mazeltov”
Listen to Madison Beer Sing “Killing Me Softly”:
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO