Justin Bieber photographed spitting off Toronto hotel balcony

Justin Bieber is back in the news after photos surfaced online showing the star spitting off a hotel balcony, as fans were gathered on the ground below.

The photos of Bieber were snapped by freelance photographer Sean O’Neill on Thursday just after 4 p.m. in Toronto, where the 19-year-old pop star is currently in the midst of a two-night concert run.

O’Neill said he didn’t realize what his camera had captured until later. "It was about an hour-and-a-half or two hours later when I was going through the pictures and I thought he was chewing gum," he told CTV News.

"Sure enough, he was spitting."

It is not clear in the photos, which first appeared on U.S.-based celebrity news outlet TMZ, if Bieber is spitting at anything or anyone in particular. However, other photos show that groups of fans were gathered below his hotel room, holding up signs and taking pictures of the singer.

Bieber even posted a short video to his Instagram account showing a crowd of screaming “Beliebers” amassing below his room at the Hazelton Hotel.

“I wake up this morning to this :) best fans in the world,” he wrote in a post accompanying the video.

This is not the first time the popstar, who was born in London, Ont., has been in the news for bad behaviour.

Bieber recently apologized for cursing former U.S. president Bill Clinton and spraying his photo with cleaning fluid in a video that later appeared online.

He is also facing a lawsuit by a paparazzo who claims the singer assaulted him in a California shopping centre last year.

The star performed the first of two sold-out shows Thursday at the Air Canada Centre. He will hit the stage again Friday night.