What's all this about a paternity suit? No wonder the Beliebers are livid

Behold, the cover of Justin Bieber's latest album, Under the Mistletoe , released this week in time for the holiday market. Chances are you were expecting an easy smile from the famously chaste Canadian, who has parlayed his early work as a YouTube sensation into a 14 million-strong Twitter following and multi-platinum stardom. But look into those eyes, and ask yourself if this is the Bieber you know and adore – the same carefree darling of the tween tweetoisie whose favourite colour is purple, and who as recently as last Christmas admonished you to Never Say Never?

Clearly, it is not. This is Bieber 2.0: collars turned up against the chill of fake snow and a very real paternity suit.

Yes, even as that flocculating polymer falls softly around Justin – somehow managing to avoid messing his focus-grouped hair out of the artisan-created mess that tested off the scale in all dominions – it seems that there are those who would destroy everything he has worked so hard for.

I'm afraid that court papers have been lodged, and that the suit in question is not some charming frivolity, perhaps emanating from an apple-pie pretty eight-year-old alleging that Justin has "stolen" her heart. Instead, it is the work of 20-year-old Mariah Yeater, who alleges that she was invited backstage after a Bieber concert in LA last year and that, following the briefest of sexual interludes, she found herself with child. The alleged result is a little boy, now four months old and named Tristyn. (I do love American spellings. They're so tizzy.)

Anyhoo, it's all kicking off. There's no word from Mother Bieber, to whom Justin swore his vow of chastity, but the singer's people say he will vigorously contest the claims as they are "demonstrably false". Meanwhile, Fox News has already asked a clinical psychologist to analyse the violently cutesy death threats that are being made against Ms Yeater by hundreds of distraught Beliebers (for thus are Justin's fans named). "Dear Mariah Yeater," ran one such warning. "Roses are red, violets are blue, stay away from Bieber or Beliebers will kill you."

Little tinkers! As for Justin, it fell to him to release a carefully formulated response, and on Wednesday he tweeted the following: "so Im going to ignore the rumors ... and focus on what is real. an opportunity to help by doing what i love. Judge me on the music!"

On the music? Oh Justin, Justin, Justin ... no. On that judicial model, Lady Justice would have to be earplugged as well as blindfolded.

Of course, none of this was in Justin's masterplan. He should have been basking in the news that he has just notched up 2bn YouTube views, making him the most eyeballed anything in the site's history. Furthermore, he is dating second-tier Disney starlet Selena Gomez, who is just one cameraphone photo scandal away from attaining first-tier status herself. Put simply, this should be "Justin's time". Instead, he appears to have run up against the first problem he couldn't Autotune away.

For what it's worth, Lost in Showbiz has every confidence that he will be able to dismiss the suit his publicist describes as "malicious". But if the unthinkable is proved to be true, let's not rush to any obvious assumptions, such that Justin was merely behaving like any normal 16-year-old boy who spends most nights performing to thousands of girls literally screaming how much they want him. Let's avoid those easy traps.

You see, Lost in Showbiz read in yesterday's Daily Mail that loads of ladies are stealing men's sperm in the night, like designer-clad versions of the succubi of yore. So today's key question can only be: did a succubus target Justin Bieber? Oh, I know this young woman implies that she is of the earthly realm. But is she in fact a foule daemonic sprite, who didst bewitch Bieber with wickedde intent, then lie with him in a disabledde bogge round the back of the Staples Centre?

Like I say, it's currently unclear. But if such a supernatural sperm-jacking did indeed take place, my Bumper Book of Succubus Lore suggests that it is likely the offending sprite would have sucked out Bieber's very soul, leaving him unable to invest his songs with the tinny emotional shallows that have become his trademark.

On the other hand, a positive paternity test would likely to lead to a charge of statutory rape, since Ms Yeates was 19 and Justin only 16 when the alleged coupling is said to have taken place. I know, I know – it all sounds like a malarial nightmare of a Hallmark movie. Plot summary: a California woman is torn by a dilemma when she is forced to choose between being branded a rapist, and her young son growing up financially unassisted by a famous teen auteur.

Meanwhile, Justin's handlers will be holding crisis meetings, wondering if any of this could have been predicted. After all, I imagine people always told him: "Be careful of what you do. Don't go around breaking young girls' hearts." And his mother always told him: "Be careful of who you love. And be careful of what you do, because the lie becomes the truth." But we're now in a situation where a girl claims that he is the one – though Justin insists the kid is not his son.

What next? Well, lyrical precedent suggests the law will be on her side for 40 days and for 40 nights. So I think it's wise to tag this story as "DEVELOPING".

{loadposition user38} source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2011/nov/03/justin-bieber-paternity-suit

source: http://www.europerank.com/lifestyle/celebrities/57944-justin-bieber-grows-up