Justin Bieber deleted his controversial naked butt photo from Instagram, and is now apologizing in case it “offended” some people. He says it was a “joke” to him, but has since learned that it upset others, particularly people with children who are fans of his.

Last Monday while in Bora Bora, Justin posted a photo of his nude butt on Instagram, as he stood on the deck of a boat, looking out over the water.

He captioned the picture “look,” which was presumably about his naked ass and not about the blue water or green mountains in the background. But now he’s sorry for having posted the graphic shot.

Justin is still growing up and he is still making some irresponsible choices, but luckily for his management, he is owning up to them now.

On Saturday, the 21-year-old singer deleted the racy snap, adding a lengthy caption, which basically said he was doing it for the kids.

In a newly uploaded fully-clothed pic of himself, Justin explained his reasons for removing the much-talked about shot.

“Hey I Deleted the photo of my butt on Instagram not because I thought it was bad but someone close to me’s daughter follows me and she was embarrassed that she saw my butt," he captioned the photo. "I totally wasn’t thinking in that aspect. And I felt awful that I felt bad.”

Bieber had some time to think about the image he uploaded and posted an apology: “To anyone I may have offended I’m so sorry,” he continued. “It was completely pure hearted as a joke but didn’t take in account there are littles following me!!! Love u guys.”

By the time Justin deleted his butt photo, it had notched up over 2.2 million likes, and he was so close to beating Kendall Jenner for the 'most liked' Instagram post.