Controversial pop legend Justin Bieber is being sued for emotional distress, TMZ reported Friday, after he egged his Jewish neighbor’s home and taunted him repeatedly with anti-Semitic slurs.
Neighbor Jeff Schwartz’s home was egged in January 2014, after months of Bieber terrorizing his Calabasas neighborhood with wild parties and drag races.
In the highly publicized suit over the egging, Bieber pleaded no contest to vandalism charges and paid $80,000 in damages, and was put on probation.
But the incidents included much more than egging, Schwartz alleges.
Court documents obtained by the celebrity news site claim that Bieber called Schwartz a “little Jew boy” on multiple occasions, particularly after Schwartz and a friend approached him over his high-speed drag races in the suburban area.
Schwartz also said Bieber shouted obscenities at him and his wife, as well as his young daughter. The family is suing for emotional distress.
This is not the first time Bieber has clashed with the Jewish community.
In April 2013, the star faced enormous backlash after he imagined Holocaust victim Anne Frank as a fan in a message he left in the Anne Frank Museum’s guestbook.
And in 2011, a trip Bieber and his family took to Israel turned disastrous when paparazzi were overzealous in their quest for photos and after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu allegedly cancelled a meeting with the then-budding star.
Bieber’s anti-Semitic tirade is puzzling due to his history; the young music talent rose to fame through none other than agent Scott “Scooter” Braun, a 28-year-old born to a Conservative Jewish family in Connecticut with many relatives in Israel.
Braun has taught Bieber the “Shema Yisrael” prayer – the central confession of faith said by Jews twice daily – and Braun has said in numerous interviews that Bieber says the Shema (along with a Christian prayer) before each concert.