A female fan of teenage sensation Justin Bieber has been hospitalised after chaos broke out at an album signing in New York.
Usher's young protege was due to meet and greet fans at the Roosevelt Field shopping mall in Long Island on Friday (20Nov09) to promote his debut release, My World.
But security personnel were overwhelmed when more than 1,000 screaming fans showed up to catch a glimpse of their pop idol - hundreds more than organisers had expected.
Mall guards were unable to keep the devotees under control and event organisers deemed it too unsafe to bring Bieber out, prompting the signing to be cancelled altogether.
Riots broke out as soon as it was announced Bieber would not be making an appearance and one girl was admitted to hospital as a result of the chaos, according to TMZ.com. She is thought to have suffered only minor injuries.
Bieber took to his Twitter.com blog to plead with fans to go home and avoid getting caught up in the trouble, revealing a member of his team had already been taken into custody.
He wrote: "The event at Roosevelt mall is cancelled. please go home. the police have already arrested one person from my camp. I don't want anyone hurt."