Next to Justin Bieber, Matt Lauer is pretty much the biggest heartthrob going among adolescent girls, so it's not much of a surprise that the Biebs chose to sample Matt in his latest rap tune, "Maria."
Well, sort of. There's a snippet from an interview Matt conducted with Justin in November of last year, right at the beginning of the new single from the album "Believe." In that interview with TODAY, Bieber addressed the allegations of Mariah Yeater, the young woman who accused the 18-year-old pop star of fathering her child after an encounter at a concert. Bieber's camp denied that he'd ever even met her, and she eventually dropped her paternity suit.
Indeed, "Maria," is a bit of a "Billie Jean" homage, and deals more or less directly with the nightmare of teen celebrity paternity suits. The hook: Maria, why you wanna do me like that? / That ain't my baby, that ain't my girl.
At the beginning of the song, Matt can be heard saying, "Do you know this woman?"
"Never met the woman," Bieber replies.
"Obviously this is what comes along with life in the fast lane," says Matt's voice, which then melts into glorious auto tune. (To watch the video clip from the November interview, click here.)
Matt and Justin are actually pretty tight by now. Just a few days ago, during a more recent interview, it was the Biebs who goaded Matt into joining Twitter before performing on the show. Now he can also thank him for a little bit of street cred, among Beliebers, at least.
Julieanne Smolinski is a TODAY.com contributor. She has never met this Justin Bieber person before in her life.
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