After postponing multiple dates of his Justice world tour due to an undisclosed illness, Justin Bieber has revealed he is experiencing Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which has caused him to have partial face paralysis.
In a video posted to Instagram, the singer says the entire right side of his face is affected, and shows he is unable to smile or blink on that side as a result of the condition. The syndrome occurs when an outbreak of shingles infects nerves in the head close to the inner ear.
“For those who are frustrated by my cancellations of the next shows, I’m just physically, obviously, not capable of doing them,” Bieber explained. “This is pretty serious, as you can see. I wish this wasn’t the case, but obviously my body’s telling me I got to slow down, and I hope you guys understand.
“I’ll be using this time to just rest and relax and get back to 100% so that I can do what I was born to do. But in the meantime, this ain’t it. I got to go get my rest on so that I can get my face back to where it’s supposed to be.” Bieber concluded the video by stressing that he was “gonna get better,” saying he was doing facial exercises. “It will go back to normal, it’s just time, and we don’t know how much time it’s gonna be. But it’s gonna be okay.”
It’s not clear exactly how many shows of Bieber’s North American tour will be affected by. The singer had scheduled shows in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and more over the next month, with European dates to follow. Bieber is also scheduled to tour Australia in November and December of this year – additional shows were announced just last month.
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