NEW YORK: Justin Bieber’s comeback is getting off to an emotional start with the Canadian pop sensation showcasing his sensitive side as he seeks to put his bad boy past behind him.

The approach appears to be working. His new single What Do You Mean? on September 3 notched up more than 21 million streams on Spotify globally in just five days, setting a new record for the music app.

Bieber, now 21, broke down in tears at MTV Video Music Awards show after singing the song. The sobs, he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, were authentic. “Honestly, I just wasn’t expecting them to support me in the way they did. Last time I was at an award show I was booed,” Bieber told Fallon on September 2.

Bieber is back on the promotional trail before the November release of his first album of new material in three years, most of which were marked by bad behaviour off stage.

He said in January that he wanted to shed the “arrogant” and “conceited” attitude that led to arrests for careless driving, pelting a neighbour’s home with eggs, assaulting a photographer, and abandoning a pet monkey at a German airport.

“I just had a bunch of knuckleheads around me,” he told Fallon of his wild child period. “That was pretty much it. You have to figure out what you are okay with, and what you’re not okay with. I just happen to be in front of spotlight and they caught those moments.”