Go easy on Justin Bieber for the next couple of nights, Toronto. He’s looking a little fragile right now.

The Stratford-raised pop superstar sets up shop at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday and Thursday evening, marking his first local live dates since he launched last year’s widely praised Purposealbum with a loose and chatty acoustic performance at the Danforth Music Hall in December.

The Bieber of May 2016, however, appears to be in rather less jovial spirits.

His decision to cancel backstage meet-and-greets with fans a mere 12 days after the tour started in March came with revealingly unguarded honesty, the 22-year-old singer declaring on Instagram that the $2,000-a-head appearances left him “feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted to the point of depression.”

Reviews of tour dates since have often dwelled on how tired and listless he’s been looking onstage, while the Bieb himself called direct attention to his own apparent weariness during a show in New York earlier this month by doing a bit about “sleeping all day” at the wrong point in the tightly choreographed show.

“That bit about the snooze button — Mr. Bieber did it twice, because the first time he did it before the wrong song, at the wrong part of the show,” wrote New York Times critic John Caramanica. “He also had to have the stage reset because he forgot to perform ‘Love Yourself,’ one of the most scathingly fun songs from Purpose.”

Bieber subsequently burst into tears while performing “Purpose” on a May 7 tour date in Philadelphia.

Then a couple of days later came another open-hearted message via Instagram that Bieber could no longer bear posing for “selfies” with fans. “I feel like a zoo animal and I wanna be able to keep my sanity,” he wrote. “I realize people will be disappointed but I don’t owe anybody a picture.”

He doesn’t, you know. And Bieber, while admittedly fond of turning the camera on his own pout, has every right to have reached the breaking point when it comes to standing in the glare of the spotlight 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He’s lived in front of the lens for the past seven years, essentially growing up in public and having every single mistake he’s made during that time splashed across headlines and TV gossip shows worldwide. It might not hurt him to take a break. It’s certainly starting to sound like he needs one.

True, there’s a certain amount of “live by the sword, die by the sword” involved in Bieber’s current predicament. But if he’s already looking genuinely worn out on a tour that’s currently booked to last at least until a pair of dates at London’s O2 Arena on Nov. 28 and 29, it might not be wise to push it.

There’s no shame in taking a little time out for mental health. And if the warning signs are there that Bieber needs to get off the treadmill for a bit, which his recent Instagram missives suggest, the people around him owe it to the young man who pays their bills to put his health first. A sullen Justin Bieber is no fun for his fans, yes, but rest assured it’s far less fun for Justin Bieber himself.

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