Anne Frank House On Justin Bieber Outrage: Focus On The Positive

Anne Frank House Responds To Bieber's Outrageous Comment

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber sparked international outrage this weekend when it was discovered that upon visiting the Anne Frank House on Friday, he left a baffling and tasteless note behind.

"Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl," wrote the 19-year-old. "Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

While responses worldwide seem to be overwhelmingly against Bieber, the singer received support this morning from an unexpected place: the Anne Frank House itself, the Amsterdam museum dedicated to preserving the memory of the young Holocaust victim and diarist.

"We think that what's special is that a 19-year-old comes to the Anne Frank House and spends an hour visiting on a Friday night," museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart told AFP.

"He could be doing other things in Amsterdam, he was very interested," said Mostart. "That's more important than the commotion that we're now seeing. That's the positive side and we want to leave it at that."

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, came to Bieber's defense as well. "If you read Anne Frank's diary, she was into celebrities, she was into pop culture," said Foxman. "So for [Bieber] to say he would have hoped that she would have been a fan, it's a nice thing."

Bieber himself has yet to respond to the controversy, though he tends to do so sometimes on Twitter and Instagram.

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