Story updated: Sept. 24, 2026 at 10:10 a.m.
MacArthur Park got an unexpected guest Tuesday: Justin Bieber, who joined several members of his band for an impromptu performance.
Social media videos show Bieber, 32, sitting on the grass, playing percussion and singing as people gather around. He performed several songs to a handful of people, including his 2025 hit “Yukon,” according to videos from the impromptu performance.
A source close to Bieber told E! News that he visited the park to distribute gift cards and other resources to unhoused people. A spokesperson for the singer could not be immediately reached for comment.
Bieber, who headlined Coachella earlier this year, played a stripped-down performance with his band.
Hunter Woelfle, 27, has lived next to the park for six years and was there for the performance.
Woelfle said he found Bieber and members of his band playing on the grass near the northeast corner of the park. He estimated there were only a dozen or so people nearby, including three nurses and a group of unhoused people who had stopped to listen.
He also saw people who appeared to be part of Bieber’s entourage handing out water bottles and small black bags containing toiletries and other supplies.
“It was very sweet,” Woelfle said. “It was completely under the radar.”
Woelfle said Bieber played about four songs and stayed for roughly 20 minutes.
His surprise appearance adds a different kind of attention typically focused on MacArthur Park. In the last several months city officials, law enforcement and community groups have taken different approaches to addressing conditions at the park and activating the space.
For Brenda Aguilera, director of the Community Transformation Collective, the reaction to Bieber’s visit is part of a larger conversation about the changes at the park.
Her organization has been working with a neighborhood volunteer group of about 60 MacArthur Park-area residents since March. The group includes parents, caregivers and vendors who meet regularly to identify neighborhood priorities and work with city agencies and community organizations.
Residents involved with the group have reported greater awareness of available services and said they feel safer in the park, Aguilera said. But she added that the people who live in and around the park should be at the center of any assessment of how conditions are changing.
“They’re not in the park. They don’t live in those neighborhoods, so they have to speak to the local community members to hear about their perspectives,” Aguilera said, referring to elected officials.
On Tuesday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli pointed to Bieber’s performance as a sign of progress at the park.
Bieber performing an impromptu set at the park is “a testament to the progress we are achieving to take back the park from drug dealers and enliven it for families,” Hochman wrote on X.
Essayli wrote: “Bieber in MacArthur Park. That’s progress. Amazing what can happen when criminals and drug dealers are removed from public spaces.”
Over the summer, the Los Angeles Police Department and federal agents carried out a multi-phase operation targeting drug activity in and around the park, including a June operation that resulted in 13 arrests. Hochman also held a picnic at the park over Labor Day weekend after saying he would return with his family if he believed it was safe enough.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez’s office, however, pointed to a longer history of work at the park in response to Bieber’s visit.
“We’re excited to see Justin Bieber enjoying MacArthur Park, just as countless other Angelenos do every day, experiencing what nearly four years of sustained investment and community partnership have made possible,” said Naomi Roochnik, a spokesperson for Hernandez.
The councilmember has invested more than $27 million in the park, including Peace Ambassadors, round-the-clock clean teams, overdose response, street medicine, youth programming, arts and culture and infrastructure improvements, according to Hernandez’s office.
“MacArthur Park’s progress belongs to the residents, workers, promotoras, outreach teams, and community organizations who do this critical, lifesaving work every single day,” Roochnik said.
Community Transformation Collective’s promotoras are among those working directly with residents, Aguilera said, helping connect them with services and providing what she described as “warm handoffs” to organizations that can offer support.
Woelfle, who has watched the park change over the years, said he has seen the city make efforts to help people, including needle drop-offs. But those efforts are often overshadowed by repeated attempts to clear people from the park, he said.
Woelfle said he believes much of what gets done at the park is “a lot about image” rather than actually taking care of people. He described the repeated efforts to clear people from the park as a “Sisyphean effort,” saying people eventually return without the underlying problems being addressed.
Bieber’s surprise visit gave him a glimpse of what he thinks the park could be.
“Justin Bieber being there, it was weird, but it was kind of emotional and beautiful,” he said. “This is what the park could be if people just treated everyone living in the park like human beings. Like everyone is so scared and there’s all of this content online just talking about the park like it’s the pit of hell.”
He added, “I think Justin and his team know that these people are mostly harmless and that you can help them. You can just show up and actually help.”
For Aguilera, community perspective matters when officials assess what is happening at the park.
“It’s not up to us or these elected officials that are in these government bodies to just speak on behalf of our communities,” she said. “They could speak about their efforts, but they can’t speak about the entire perspective. It’s really those that live there that could share that perspective.”
