Justin Bieber Explains Why He Cried at the VMAs

In case you haven't already heard, Justin Bieber broke down on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards show, inciting a lot of reactions from fans and critics alike.

On Wednesday, he explained himself on "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon, as the host insisted on knowing exactly what brought on the waterworks.

The answer is fairly simple -- there were a lot of feels.

Not that the singer put it that way. He told Jimmy of his performance (which included a new debut), "It was just so overwhelming for me. Everything. The performance. I missed some cues, so I was a little disappointed."

But that wasn't all. The 21-year-old, who has been trying to rehabilitate his image as pointed out by the Los Angeles Times, explained, "I wasn't expecting them to support me in the way they did... Last time, I was at an awards show, I was booed." CNN noted that this was during Fashion Rocks in September last year.

"I think it's just like I worked so hard on this album. I worked so hard at just becoming the man I want to become. Stepping into situations, you can't help but feel judged. So, I was just feeling judged and wanting to win so badly and just wanting to do what I love so badly that I just put everything on the line," he continued.

"And I think that that was what was so special about the emotional moment at the end, that it was authentic. It was real. It was like I was really just wanting it so bad," he concluded in the end.

In an attempt to lighten up the mood, Fallon joked about Bieber's harness being too tight for the performance, but went on to cheer his guest for his apparent transformation, which led Bieber to have to explain himself and his rather questionable shenanigans during his downward spiral. "What it was is that I had a bunch of knuckleheads around me; that was pretty much it. [It's] never good to have knuckleheads around."

Ultimately, he was a kid who was caught in the limelight: "I just went through a place of just trying to figure it out and making decisions. You have to figure out what you're OK with and you're not OK with, but you have to test the waters. I just happened to be in the spotlight, in front of cameras all the time, and they caught all those moments."

What did you think about Justin's emotional performance at the VMAs?