New Just For Laughs Fest Owner Tells Ticket Buyers: Laugh or Get a Refund
If Montrealers aren't bursting with laughter watching JFL galas this weekend at the Place des Arts hosted by Roy Wood Jr., Fortune Feimster, Michelle Buteau and Saturday Night Live castmember Mikey Day, they'll get their hard-earned dollars back.
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'If they're not happy, we're going to reimburse them without argument,' Parent-Bedard, a Quebec comedy veteran who has done a pivot to English-language comedy by buying JFL out of bankruptcy in 2024, tells The Hollywood Reporter.
He has big shoes to fill, after JFL over the decades left belly-laughing Montrealers entertained by big names like Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Fallon, Lewis Black, Chris Rock, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Larry the Cable Guy and others.
But he remains that confident of his comedy programming for the 2025 edition, which followed a canceled JFL in 2024 and the rehiring of festival veteran Nick Brazao as head of programming.
'Nick and his team have done such a great job and we have worked so well on the galas with the hosts and the comics that I'm ready to tell them (ticket holders) that we need them, and because we need them, we want to have a good relationship,' Parent-Bedard said of winning over Montrealers who sustained JFL through the decades.
That was until Just For Laughs filed for bankruptcy protection in 2024 after running up debts coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, facing price inflation in Montreal and an increasingly disruptive global entertainment business.
Parent-Bedard's ComediHa! banner based in Quebec City bought the JFL brand and library out of bankruptcy with an eye to reviving the Montreal festival to the point it once again becomes the comedy industry powerhouse it was pre-pandemic.
In what has become a transition year with the 2025 edition, Parent-Bedard is looking for a 'solid' 2025 edition to kickstart the comedy festival's comeback. And down the road, Parent-Bedard is looking to expand on JFL's roots by holding comedy festivals around the world, including Toronto, Sydney, Australia and Bermuda, while also drawing in new comedic talent from YouTube, TikTok and other digital platforms.
'The vision at the moment is to stabilize Just For Laughs. And maybe it won't become the same thing as it was, but for sure, it will be something great that everybody, fans and industry people, want to participate on in a new way, but we are not there yet,' he told THR.
That leaves chief programmer Brazao, with an eye to drawing established and emerging comedic talent to Montreal, as in the past, having to walk a tightrope between appealing to a traditional film and TV industry out of Hollywood and an increasingly global entertainment industry where new talent and voices can come from anywhere and everywhere.
'The uniqueness of the festival is trying to have both,' Brazao explains as JFL in the future will also look to new programming, for example by talent that blew up on TikTok or Instagram, while also bringing big-name performers to Montreal to anchor comedy shows.
'We're going to remain taste makers by being able to show people, hey, you need to trust the brand and you need to trust us, that we're doing the homework to find these amazing people from all over the world that you don't know yet. So it's both,' he explained.
The Just For Laughs comedy festival continues in Montreal through Sunday.
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'It was never that crazed, screaming thing. I didn't think about it in any kind of way except for the fact that he was cute. Everybody had a crush on him. But for the first few years, we had a weird age gap.' February 2011: Premiere Hailey and Justin's first red carpet photo together was at the premiere of his concert film Never Say Never. They posed together with her dad. 2011/12: Twitter Fandom Though she denies superfandom, Hailey did share a few public tweets of support towards Justin in the years following their meeting. She was a fan of his relationship with Selena Gomez, calling them 'the definition of a teenage dream' in one 2011 post that resurfaced years later. Hailey was still a few years off from launching her modeling career, but she did make her debut as a music video star in 2011 as the love interest in Cody Simpson's 'On My Mind.' Meanwhile, Justin was preparing for the release of his 2012 blockbuster Believe. 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As Hailey and Justin began hanging out more, even posting each other on social media, rumors began to swirl that they were an item, which they both denied. 'People are crazy,' Justin wrote on Instagram that December in the caption of a pic of him and Hailey. 'I'm super single and this is my good friend u would know otherwise.' 2015: A Rumored Love Triangle Seems to Emerge Beginning with New Year's Eve, Hailey and Justin's budding friendship became well-documented. They were spotted in Miami and later Mexico together, posting Instagrams with one another and their mutual friends. They even crashed a prom in California together. Things grew confusing around this time as Justin's relationship with Gomez popped up again. The 'Come and Get It' singer had been spotted with Orlando Bloom and Zedd since her first break-up with Justin, but it didn't seem like their relationship was fully over. 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'I don't want to put anyone in a position where they feel like I'm only theirs, only to be hurt in the end,' he told GQ, before noting that the one bad break-up he had experienced in his life was with Gomez, whom he was then on good terms with. 'Right now in my life, I don't want to be held down by anything. I already have a lot that I have to commit to. A lot of responsibilities. I don't want to feel like the girl I love is an added responsibility. I know that in the past I've hurt people and said things that I didn't mean to make them happy in the moment. So now I'm just more so looking at the future, making sure I'm not damaging them. What if Hailey ends up being the girl I'm gonna marry, right? If I rush into anything, if I damage her, then it's always gonna be damaged. It's really hard to fix wounds like that. It's so hard.… I just don't want to hurt her.' The day Justin's quote about them dropped, Hailey spoke with E! News on a red carpet. 'We are not an exclusive couple. He's about to go on tour,' she said at the time. 'Relationships at this age are already complicated, but I don't really like to talk about it because it's between me and him. Some time in the first half of the year, Hailey and Justin parted ways not just as lovers but also friends. 'Negative things happened that we still need to talk about and work through,' Hailey told Vogue in 2019. ''Fizzled' would not be the right word — it was more like a very dramatic ex-communication. There was a period where if I walked into a room, he would walk out.' 2016/17: 'A Very Dramatic Ex-Communication' In August 2016, Justin began dating Sofia Richie and posting about their relationship on Instagram. This ignited a nasty comment war with Gomez, as both accused each other of cheating during their relationship. But by fall 2017, they had cooled off their anger and reheated their spark, publicly smooching and spending time together. June 2018: Reunion for Good Justin and Gomez called it quits once again in March, the time with less fanfare. Meanwhile, Hailey had attended the Met Gala with Shawn Mendes, igniting romance rumors for the pair. But after seeing each other at a church conference, Hailey and Justin decided to give their relationship another try. 'The common denominator, I promise you, is always church,' Hailey told Vogue. 'By then we were past the drama. I just gave him a hug. By the end of the conference, he was like, 'We're not going to be friends.' I was like, 'We're not?'' July 2018: Engaged Justin seemed to know immediately that his reunion with Hailey was meant to be a more permanent one. He popped the question just a few weeks after they began dating again. He confirmed the news on Instagram. 'I promise to lead our family with honor and integrity letting Jesus through his Holy Spirit guide us in everything we do and every decision we make,' he wrote. 'My heart is COMPLETELY and FULLY YOURS and I will ALWAYS put you first! You are the love of my life Hailey Baldwin and I wouldn't want to spend it with anybody else.' September 2018: Big Moves and a Courthouse Wedding Two months after their engagement, Hailey moved into Justin's Toronto home. Then on September 13, the two tied the knot at a Manhattan courthouse. November 2018: New Name Two months after getting married, Hailey officially changed her name to Hailey Bieber. September 2019: Second Wedding The pair became a more public item the following year. They appeared on the cover of Vogue together in February 2019, confirming their marriage and sharing their love story. Then one year after their courthouse wedding, the couple held a bigger ceremony in Bluffton, South Carolina for friends and family. 'Being able to spend my life with someone and know that there's always that person to go back to and that I get to share every moment with and get to share my life with just makes it so much more rewarding,' Justin said of his wife in his Seasons docuseries shortly after tying the knot. 'Just the idea of stability is something that I really never had growing up and it's something that I've always really wanted.' Spring/Summer 2022: The Biebers Support Each Other Justin and Hailey weathered a storm of health scares in 2022. In March 2022, Hailey revealed she was hospitalized for a mini stroke and called it 'one of the scariest moments I've ever been through.' She was diagnosed with a PFO shortly after. 'They found I had suffered a very small blood clot to my brain, which caused a small lack of oxygen, but my body had passed it on its own and I recovered completely within a few hours,' she wrote on Instagram at the time. And later, in June, Bieber postponed shows on his Justice tour after being diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. 'Obviously, my body's telling me I gotta slow down,' he said at the time, adding a few days later: 'Each day has gotten better and through all of the discomfort, I have found comfort in the one who designed me and knows m.e.. his perspective has given me peace during this horrific storm that I'm facing. I know this storm will pass but in the meantime, Jesus is with me.' It wasn't until the end of July that he returned to the tour. September 2022: Hailey Bieber Addresses Selena Gomez Rumors Hailey Bieber sat down with Alex Cooper for the Call Her Daddy podcast and used the space to address supposed drama with Justin's ex Selena Gomez. 'Let's just put it this way: When him and I ever started, like, hooking up, or anything of that sort, he was not ever in a relationship, ever, at any point,' Hailey said. 'It's not in my character to mess with someone's relationship. I would just never do that. I was raised better than that.' At the time, Hailey also said that 'there's no drama' with the singer. The following year, in March 2023, Gomez asked fans to stop attacking Hailey after TikTok users analyzed posts from the two women and made up drama. 'Hailey Bieber reached out to me and let me know that she has been receiving death threats and such hateful negativity,' Gomez wrote on her Instagram Story. 'This isn't what I stand for. No one should have to experience hate or bullying. I've always advocated for kindness and really want this all to stop.' August 2024: Welcome, Baby Jack! In May 2024, Hailey and Justin shared they were expecting a baby as she showed off her baby bump during a vow renewal. In August, the pair welcomed a baby boy named Jack Blues Bieber, after Justin's middle name. July 2025: Justin Releases and References Hailey After months of speculation around his health and well-being, Justin made a comeback with the album Swag. Both Hailey and baby Jack appeared on the album cover. On the track 'Go Baby,' Justin references his wife and her company Rhode: 'That's my baby, she's iconic, iPhone case, lip gloss on it,' he sings, and later adds: 'She keeps 'em talkin', it's comedy, just block it.' On 'Walking Away,' he also referenced their marriage, singing, 'Baby, I ain't walking away / You were my diamond, gave you a ring / I made you a promise, I told you I'd change.' On a skit with Druski titled 'Therapy Session,' Bieber addresses concerns about his mental health, revealing: 'I have had to go through a lot of my struggles as a human, as all of us do, really publicly, and so people are always asking if I'm okay and that starts to really weigh on me. It starts to make me feel like I'm the one with issues and everyone else is perfect.' Following the release of the album, a source told Rolling Stone that Justin had '100 percent creative freedom' on the record after parting ways with his longtime manager Scooter Braun. 'He was able to be his true, authentic self and didn't have any additional voices trying to steer him in a certain direction,' the source said. 'This is the most pure version of Justin we've ever seen musically.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword
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Justin Bieber's ‘Swag' Lands at Number 2. It's Still His Biggest Streaming Debut Yet
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