Justin Bieber Brings Out the Kid Laroi, Dijon at Coachella 2026
The set also featured appearances from Tems, Wizkid, and Mk.gee
By Larisha Paul
In October, Justin Bieber went live on Twitch with some teasers for his fans. “I’m putting on a hell of a show for you guys for Coachella, getting ready, and getting inspired,” he said about his headlining performance at the festival. On Saturday night, Bieber followed through with a set that featured an appearance from the Kid Laroi, who joined him for ‘Stay‘ and he later invited Dijon to the stage, as well as a few other special guests.
The Kid Laroi discussed their relationship and Bieber’s positivity in 2024 with Rolling Stone. “He’s just a really special human being. He has no ego when it comes to supporting me,” Laroi said. “Not everyone’s like him. He’s very giving and he wants to offer everything that he has to help me.”
Bieber and Dijon performed their Swag collaboration ‘Devotion’ during a particularly warm moment in the set. The musician was an essential collaborator on the record and completed his own set at Coachella on Friday night. Another artist who appears in the credits of the album, Mk.gee, joined Bieber at the very end of his performance to play bass guitar on ‘Daisies.’
There were quite a few collaborations in the medley of songs Bieber played during the show — like the Jaden Smith-assisted classic ‘Never Say Never,’ ‘Confident’, which features Chance the Rapper, as well as ‘Beauty and a Beat,’ which features Nicki Minaj, and ‘Where Are Ü Now,’ which he created with Diplo and Skrillex. But Bieber had other artists in mind when deciding who to bring to the stage.
Towards the end of the set, Tems appeared for the first live performance of ‘I Think You’re Special,’ which appeared on Swag II. The pair of artists previously collaborated in Bieber’s remix of WizKid‘s ‘Essence,’ released in 2021. It was only right, then, that the Nigerian star join them to perform it.
Bieber teased his headlining set with a preview performance at the Roxy in Los Angeles just over a week before the festival. It marked Bieber’s first U.S. concert in four years. The invite-only, no-phones gig found the musician performing music from last year’s double-album releases, Swag and Swag II.
“Swag definitely makes it clear that Bieber’s got issues — his issues have issues,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of the record. “But he channels it all into some of the most genuinely creative and wide-ranging music of his life. ‘You can’t spread your wings in a bird cage,’ as he sings in ‘First Place.’ But all over Swag, he’s taking flight.”
Ahead of the album, a source close to the musician told Rolling Stone about the newfound creative control he secured on the record, calling it “the purest form” of Bieber we’ve ever seen. “Having full creative freedom, sadly, is something new for him as an artist,” the source said. “Not having to stress about creating the perfect single, or perfect album allowed for him to create the best body of music he’s ever made.”