Justin Bieber has long loved a mustache. I don’t know for certain how far it goes back, so I’ll pick random piece of evidence from a decade ago, when he met John Waters on Britain’s Graham Norton Show in 2010. Bieber’s face was but a fuzzy peach full of song, and he told Waters, “Your ’stache is the jam.” Waters offered to draw a replica of his mustache onto Bieber’s upper lip after the 16-year-old.

The result was gorgeous. In a paparazzi photo still lingering on the internet, there’s the mustache made in the image of Waters’s long, thin line. It was clearly the best joke Bieber had ever encountered in his short life. On the singer’s face one could see delight, and there, maybe, was a meet-cute that would launch a long and fruitful love story. Whenever Bieber could grow his own mustache, he would, and he did many times over the years.

It was almost with relief that the return of Bieber’s music—that is, his single “Yummy” out at the beginning of 2020—coincided with the return of his mustache. It was settled. He would go through another promotional cycle for his album Changes with the support of his scraggly friend. And so wherever he was, there was the hair: He and it attended the premiere of his new docuseries, Justin Bieber: Seasons, as did his wife, Hailey Bieber (who reportedly dislikes the mustache). He and it were there beside Saturday Night Live host RuPaul for promotional materials, and then he and it were there onstage Saturday night performing with Quavo.

Of course there was a bit of murmur, some messages online about his upper-lip. Of course fans had something to say about his dirtbag grooming. But that doesn’t bother him. It feeds him. “For now, Justin is amused,” a People source said, adding, patronizingly, “There are so many things to worry about in the world, and this is what people focus on. The more people want him to shave it off, the more he wants to keep it. It’s staying for now. It’s making him feel like a rebel and he likes it.”

Despite the light chastising from some source near or around him, he partnered up with an Instagram account represented by Fuck Jerry, @dudewithsign, to promote his album and his mustache. He and his team want people to talk about the facial hair.

And of course we’ll talk about it for them. This kind of relationship is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And we wish them well. And we wish Hailey Bieber peace.

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