The "Baby" hitmaker unveiled the promo on Vevo.com on Friday and fans rushed to the website to check out the pool party clip, helping the collaborators to score 10.6 million hits and steal the title of most-watched video in 24 hours from boyband One Direction, whose promo for "Live While We're Young" attracted 8.2 million views in the same time frame.
However, the "Beauty and a Beat" video, which was directed by Bieber himself, has also caused controversy - the promo was released two days after the singer took to Twitter.com to tell his followers his laptop and camera had been stolen while he was performing onstage in Tacoma, Washington - and the video opens with a title card which reads: "In October of 2012 three hours of personal footage was stolen from musician Justin Bieber. The following footage was illegally uploaded by an anonymous blogger."
It appears Bieber's theft claim was simply an elaborate prank to boost hype for the clip's release, but the star's publicist, Melissa Victor, has defended the teen superstar and insisted his computer really did go missing.
In an email to the Associated Press, she writes, "Be very clear, the laptop was indeed stolen in Tacoma. That was not a hoax."
Bieber's tour manager, Josh Williams, reportedly filed a police report with cops in Tacoma last Thursday.
