Justin Bieber apparently knew about the footage that showed him telling a racial joke before it surfaced.

The 20 year-old was allegedly "the victim of a million dollar shakedown" by the man who had the clip in his possession, TMZ reports.

Earlier this week a video was published by the British tabloid The Sun of Bieber asking, "Why are black people afraid of chainsaws?"

The singer, who was smirking, then delivered the offensive punch line, saying: "Run n-----, n-----, n-----, n-----, n-----."

According to the gossip site, Bieber's management team were contacted by a lawyer hired by a man, who worked on one of the pop star's video projects, around two months ago.

This unknown man somehow got his hands on one of the 'Baby' singer's hard drives and stumbled across the video, he then quickly made a copy.

The man was reportedly asking for $1 million to keep the clip out of the public's eye, but when Justin's reps refused, the lawyer quickly lowered the price to $800,000.

Negotiations went back and forth until about a week ago, the lawyer stated that $500,000 would be enough to keep the footage a secret, but after he was told "he wasn't even in the ballpark," the video emerged a week later.

As the Canadian star was only 15 year-old at the time of telling the joke, it was believed amongst his team that they weren't too worried about it being made public.

The day after the clip was released, Bieber issued an apology for his "ignorance" as he was just "a kid then."

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However, only days after this video emerged online, another clip showing Bieber using racial slurs surfaced. He is seen rapping about killing a 'N-word' and joining the Klu Klux Klan, as well as changing the words of his 2009 hit 'One Less Lonely Girl' to One Less Lonely N----.'

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Although Bieber hasn't addressed the second tape directly, he did post text from Sarah Young's book 'Jesus Calling' on Instagram instead of a written apology.

Justin Bieber
Bieber was reportedly blackmailed with the racial footage