Why Justin Bieber Didn’t Appear in the Music Video for ‘Sorry’
“Sorry” is one of Justin Bieber’s most well-known songs. Its video might be his most iconic video to date. Oddly enough, he never appears in the video at all.
Instead, the video features a group of colorfully-dressed dancers performing memorable routines. When the video was first released, some fans were shocked by Bieber‘s absence from it. Is there a reason why Bieber never appeared in the video? Did the original idea for the video involve Bieber?
The choreographer behind the video for Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’
The video for “Sorry” was choreographed by Parris Goebel. According to Cosmopolitan, she was asked to create something fun and colorful. Mission accomplished! Other choreographers might have been intimidated by the project due to Bieber’s fame, but Goebel had fun with it.
Goebel told Elle she was “Excited to take on the challenge. We shot and choreographed the whole thing in two days. I just thought it was a really cool opportunity and went for it. I love to have fun during projects that are given to me, so we had a lot of fun creating it. It was all about having fun, not really overthinking the opportunity or overthinking the fact that it was Justin Bieber.”
In addition to choreographing the video, Goebel had a huge influence on its wardrobe. “[A] lot of [the outfits in the video are] just my wardrobe. We were all panicking because a lot of the girls didn’t have ’90s things or colorful things and we had set that theme already. A lot of the girls were like ‘Ahhh! I don’t have anything.’ So, I literally just packed two huge suitcases of my clothes and took it to the shoot and just said you wear this, you wear that, you wear that and then that was that.”
What Parris Goebel thought of the video and why Justin Bieber wasn’t in it
Goebel told Rolling Stone the process of creating the video was very spontaneous. Goebel said she and her group of dancers just tried out different styles of dance and went with the flow. She had lots of fun during the video shoot, which she described as “very chill.”
Shockingly, Goebel’s video for “Sorry” wasn’t originally intended to be the video for the song. Instead, it was intended to be a simple lyric video without Bieber himself. However, Bieber’s management decided Goebel’s Beiber-less video was so good it should serve as the main video for the song. That is quite a testament to the strength of Goebel’s choreography and fashion sense.
The video became a huge internet sensation. Goebel was happy when the video did well online. She enjoyed having people who aren’t involved in professional dance appreciate her work. All in all, Goebel is largely responsible for one of the most memorable videos of the 2010s.
Also see: Justin Bieber Reveals Hailey Bieber’s Favorite Songs From His New Album
