Jonatanas Kazlauskas reveals surprisingly tragic story behind viral ‘Sorry’ performance

A viral clip from X Factor Lithuania is all over TikTok right now, as people tip into Jonatanas Kazlauskas’s performance of Sorry by Justin Bieber, and he’s finally given the full context.

Jonatanas, who was in season three of the Lithuanian X Factor, performed two Justin Bieber songs in 2016: Sorry and Love Yourself. Clips from both performances have received millions of views across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram Reels, even though the videos are from 10 years ago.

@mangodiddyadrian

#funny #meme #lithuania #xfactor #67

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While he was singing Sorry, Jonatanas danced around the stage and kept singing the word “sorry” over and over again as he forgot the lyrics. The judges can be seen cringing and hiding behind their hands, and you can hear the audience clap along sympathetically as he stumbles around the stage awkwardly.

In a recent interview with Overtime, Jonatanas gave more context to the really funny video.

“What happened there was just too much stress. I think I was overwhelmed,” he said. “And I think I had not much time to prepare. I think I got the song on Friday or something like that? So it was like two or three days to learn it. And I remember one weak before I was in the hospital because of the stress.

He added: “I got popular too fast.”

Despite that messy performance, Jonatanas actually stayed on X Factor and avoided getting voted out by the public.

@trispouring

Jonatanas from X Faktorius Lithuania became a meme not because he was bad, but because his audition was so unintentionally real that the internet couldn’t let it go. During his performance of Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself,” he clearly didn’t fully know the lyrics, and instead of bluffing his way through, he kept stopping to apologize. Every time he forgot a line, he’d apologize again and then continue singing anyway—sometimes repeating the same words, sometimes humming, sometimes just making up sounds to stay on rhythm. That constant loop of singing, forgetting, apologizing, and jumping back in created a rhythm of its own, and viewers immediately picked up on how absurd and relatable it was. As soon as clips of the audition hit social media, people started isolating those apology moments, looping them, and turning them into jokes. Edits exaggerated how often he said sorry, captions compared him to someone apologizing in everyday situations, and suddenly Jonatanas wasn’t just a contestant anymore—he became a reaction meme. It spread so fast because nothing about it felt forced; he wasn’t trying to be funny or go viral, he was just nervously doing his best on live TV, and that honesty made the awkwardness even funnier. The contrast between a huge pop hit and a contestant politely apologizing mid-song was perfect meme material. Later on, the meme only grew when people remembered that Jonatanas had also performed Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” which made everything even more ironic. The idea that the same contestant known for constantly apologizing had sung a song literally called “Sorry” felt almost too perfect, and the internet ran with it. People started connecting the two performances, joking that apologizing was basically part of his musical style, and using his clips as the ultimate example of saying sorry while still pushing through. Even though “Love Yourself” is the performance that really started it all, the “Sorry” connection helped cement Jonatanas as one of those unforgettable talent-show moments that live on far beyond the stage, remembered less for the judges’ reactions and more for how completely the internet adopted him. #meme #xfactor #viral #sorry #funny

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“I had lots of people who like my performances before. But after that, next time, I got another Bieber song. I made some mistakes too, and even after that they still voted for me,” he explained.

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The next week, he performed Love Yourself, which went just as bad. Jonatanas even eneded up saying “sorry” over and over again, even though that wasn’t in the lyrics of the song. In the same interview, he explained what was going through his head in that moment.

“I think I was just thinking too much about the previous week,” he said.

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Featured image via YouTube