Justin Bieber is synonymous with a youth idol, a mass phenomenon, and a groupie. And very precocious. He was 15 years old when he revolutionized the pop world with his first single One Time. A year later, with the album My World and his song Baby, he became a god supported by millions of unconditional fans who baptized themselves as Beliebers. From then on, the singer’s career has been full of more shadows than lights.
Today he turns 30, and he does so preparing his return to the stage after a year away due to health problems. In March 2023 he had to cancel his Justice World Tour to fight Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a virus that attacks the nerves and paralyzes the face. His recovery seems to be going well: three weeks ago he was the star guest at the National Hockey League of Canada’s All Star Weekend. There he performed for 2,500 people.
A few days before, the Canadian artist published a photo of him in the recording studio with the phrase “excited for this next year.” His fans have read between the lines and predict that 2024 could be the singer’s resurgence. His last album was Justice, in 2021.
The former pop child prodigy enters his thirties and has become a married man. This year he will celebrate his sixth wedding anniversary with model Hailey Baldwin, now Bieber. Few predicted a happy and lasting union, as they are proving. “I am navigating the best stage of my life: marriage. Which is a wonderful, crazy responsibility. “You learn to be patient, to trust, to commit, to be kind, humble and all the things that make you a good man,” he said about this stage of his life.
Since he is happily married, he also seems to be a focused, serene man who is far from the excesses, scandals and some mental health problems – such as depression – that plagued him in the past.
Justin Drew Bieber grew up alone with his mother, Pattie Mallette, who had him when he was 18 and had to work several jobs to get ahead. He was a boy who liked sports and music. His mother recorded a video during a young talent contest and uploaded it to YouTube. Music industry executive Scooter Brown saw him and turned him into a teen star.
With millions of followers around the world, he was soon one of the best-selling artists in recording history and Forbes magazine recognized him as one of the richest young people on the planet with income exceeding $80 million.
At the age of 19 he decided to take a turn in his career and released a more adult album, Purpose. She also changed her boyish look to give way to a more rapper and sporty aesthetic. Young, with fame, a lot of money, and very spoiled by the industry, he began to become a deified, rude, capricious and ill-mannered being. “No one prepared me for this life. I was pushed into this at the age of 12 and I didn’t know what I was getting into,” the singer justified.
His history of scandals ranges from attacks on the press, his audience and the police, outbursts, intolerable delays and disappointments in his concerts to speeding, alcoholism, possession of marijuana, cocaine and sex addiction.
In his most problematic years he had a relationship with Selena Gómez, which was marked by emotional abuse and infidelities. The couple started dating in 2010 – he was 16 and she was 18 –; and after several comings and goings, they ended in 2017.
And the moment came when Justin hit rock bottom. “I started using very hard drugs at 19 and being abusive in all my relationships. I became resentful, disrespectful of women, and angry. “I began to distance myself from everyone who loved me and I was hiding behind the person I had become,” he confessed. The media also warned that the artist was fighting depression.
To get out of the darkness, the singer took refuge in religion. While he was introspecting to get out of the black hole, he met the model Hailey Baldwin, who gave him the serenity and stability that she so longed for.