Singer Justin Bieber reportedly didn't think a tape showing him cracking a racist joke was "harmful" because he was a teenager when it was made.

The 20-year-old's representatives were said to have been contacted two months ago about the clip - which was recently made public and sees Bieber use the word "n*****" five times - by a lawyer representing a man who worked on his video projects.

The man was reportedly in possession of Bieber's personal hard drive, saw the video and swiped it, before asking for $1 million in exchange for not making the footage public.

The singer's team refused to pay out, even when the figure was dropped to $800,000 and then to $500,000 because they reportedly felt the footage wouldn't be very damaging to his career as he was so young at the time, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

After the video surfaced online, Bieber apologised for the inappropriate joke about black people and he claimed he "didn't realise at the time that it wasn't funny".

This comes at the same time that a new video emerged where the "Baby" hitmaker reportedly joked about killing black people and joining the racist organisation Ku Klux Klan.