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Justin Bieber is no stranger to controversy.
From his arrests and blatant disrespect for authority to the recent videos that show him using the N-word, he's far removed from the innocent YouTube kid who could sing.
While his fan base seems to continuously grow for the 20-year-old international pop star, the question lies in whether his recent scandal is something he can ever truly come back from.
"The stuff he's doing hasn't completely torpedoed his career … yet," Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture studies at Syracuse University, told the Daily News. "But this does an awful lot of damage that's not immediately measurable."
Thompson compared Bieber's uses of the N-word to Michael Richards' (Kramer from "Seinfeld") public meltdown at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles in 2006, when he used the racial slur.
"I still can't look at (Richards) the same way," Thompson said, adding that Bieber's racist antics will undeniably leave a stain on his career and certainly his image."What the videos did was show us that
even though Bieber was young, cute and innocent, he was still doing some pretty reprimandable things," he added. "It retroactively puts a cloud over the bad boy Bieber of today and now, yesterday."
After the first video surfaced showing a 15-year-old Bieber telling a racist joke with the N-word -- which British tabloid The Sun published on Sunday -- the pop star issued a statement of apology.
"I'm very sorry," he said in the statement Sunday to The Associated Press. "I take all my friendships with people of all cultures very seriously and I apologize for offending or hurting anyone with my childish and inexcusable behavior."
Two days after his admission another video surfaced, again showing Bieber in his teen years. This time he changed the words to his 2009 hit "One Less Lonely Girl" to "One Less Lonely N-----." In it, Bieber can be seen giggling and smiling as he jokes about joining the Ku Klux Klan.
So what can the "Never Say Never" singer do to remove the stain?
"He needs to go away because if he doesn't he can't have a fresh start," Amanda Sanders, a New York celebrity image consultant, told The News.
"He needs to lay low for a month or two."Sanders touched on Britney Spears' 2007 breakdown in which the pop star left the spotlight for some time in order to get her personal affairs in order before resurfacing.
"I'm not saying he has to go to rehab," Sanders said. "But Bieber will never be seen as that sweet, wholesome boy again. He needs to just be gone for a while."
Even the suggestion of a public apology similar to Jonah Hill's emotional admission on "The Tonight Show" after hurling a homophobic slur at paparazzo isn't advisable to correct Bieber's racist blunder.
"If he did something like Jonah Hill it would have to be believable," Sanders added, saying she didn't think Bieber could pull off a sincere apology like the "Wolf of Wall Street" star. "And it should be live and not on Twitter or online."
Because of Bieber's previous screw-ups that have received little to no reaction from the singer, the image experts agree that it's unlikely he'll ever truly own up to what he did and that smear to his credibility will remain.
"Whenever his name is mentioned, all these other things he's done will hum in the background," Thompson said. "The future of his career is going in a very different direction than if he went something like the Justin Timberlake route."
Thompson mentioned a previous Google produced video that highlighted the timeline of Bieber's career from YouTube sensation to international superstar.
"His career isn't ruined, but no one will make a video like that now," he said.
"By the time people get over this completely it will be because they've forgotten Bieber."For now, the videos of a young Bieber laughing after his uses of the N-word are still highly relevant and damaging to his image. Sadly, this could be only the beginning.
"We don't know how many videos people have made (of him like that)," Thompson added. "He grew up in the digital era."
"I thought it was OK to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but I didn't realize at the time that it wasn't funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance," Bieber said in the statement Sunday. "Thanks to friends and family I learned from my mistakes and grew up and apologized for those words. Now that these mistakes from the past have become public I need to apologize again to all of those who I have offended."
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