If your kids seem even more glued than usual to their phones lately, they might be scouring the Internet for intel on local Justin Bieber sightings.
Alex Ruggiero, a student at St. Pius X Catholic High School, and Ally McCarthy, a student at Walton High School, spotted him at the Marietta Ice Center in east Cobb County on Tuesday night and posted photos of their chance encounter.
"There were only about 40 people there," Ruggiero told us. Her brother, Jacob Ruggiero, was playing hockey when Bieber and friends showed up. Awesome brother that he is, he called his sister to alert her.
“Two limos pulled up and Justin walked right out with his entourage,” Alex Ruggiero said. “He skated awhile and then said ‘hey’ to a few of my friends. He was there for about an hour. Initially he was allowing people to take pictures of him, but then he was like ‘nah,’ and then got really annoyed at everyone and left.”
McCarthy said Bieber has skills on the ice.
“We watched him play with a bunch of other club hockey players for a while, and he was really good,” McCarthy told us. “He took pictures with some hockey players on the sideline. Then he left and we didn’t manage to get any pictures with him. There were a lot of hockey players and fans surrounding him.”
The site GA Followers posted a photo of him on the ice and also at a Zaxby’s (possibly the one near the ice rink, on Johnson Ferry Road near Lower Roswell Road).
Bieber’s Instagram and Twitter accounts feature a short clip of him playing ice hockey with the hashtag #hockeyseason.
Things have been a bit rocky in Bieberville lately, what with getting arrested in Miami after a drag racing episode and then turning himself in to police in Toronto to respond to allegations that he attacked a limo driver. Toronto's crack-smoking mayor, Rob Ford, defended him, saying, "At 19 years old, I wish I was as successful as he was."
More recently, the Daily Mail reported that Bieber and his entourage treated a flight attendant on his leased private jet so badly that “she was forced to hide in the cockpit,” and the New York Daily News posted a handy graphic showing New York clubs that have Bieber bans in place.
A petition to deport him has gained more than 250,000 signatures and the support of U.S. Sen. Mark Warner.
“It’s true: I’m not a Belieber,” Warner tweeted.
Atlanta is a secondary (or tertiary) home for the Canadian-born singer who's been making news more for his legal tangles than his music lately. His musical mentors Usher and Scooter Braun, who launched his career, are here. Maybe he's here to reboot following all the recent unpleasantness.
