Justin Bieber: The Unauthorized Biography

Introduction

In April 2010 Justin Bieber performed live in front of 30,000 adoring spectators in Washington DC, the capital city of America. For a sixteen-year-old boy this is a pretty remarkable feat in itself – but it gets even more amazing than that. The performance took place at the White House, and among the 30,000 people in the audience was the couple who live there – the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, and his wife Michelle. The First Lady was spotted dancing along to Justin’s songs. Incredible, and all the more so given that this was the second time young Justin had sung for her and the President! The venue for this performance – the powerbase of a global superpower – was appropriate because Justin himself has become nothing short of a superpower of the pop world over the past few years.

He now has millions of fans across the globe, but to describe his devotees as ‘fans’ is an understatement: their devotion to Justin goes far beyond normal fandom. The crazy whirlwind of excitement that follows him wherever he goes is known as ‘Biebermania’. He has experienced it across the globe, from a fans’ stampede in Australia to similar scenes of hysteria in New Zealand, Paris and New York – and everywhere in between.

As he flies in to any country, huge crowds flock to the airport to greet him. The countries might be different but the scenes are always the same: thousands of admirers crying, screaming and jostling to get closer to him. These hyperventilating fans have also created their own language in which to express their devotion: ‘OMB’ means ‘Oh My Bieber’; a ‘Belieber’ is one who ‘believes in Justin’; a ‘Bieberholic’ is, as Justin himself put it, someone ‘who is addicted to the Bieb’.

As his fame and popularity soar, Justin must sometimes look back to how it all began: with a humble account on the YouTube website onto which he and his mother uploaded videos of him singing. They originally only expected these clips to be watched by relatives and a few friends. But the moment they clicked the ‘upload’ button on the first video – on 19 January 2007 – they set in motion a chain of events that would quickly make Justin one of the most famous people on the planet.

Fate would lift him and his mother from their humble existence in a small town in Canada to the very heart of the music industry in America. There, the record company boss who gleefully signed him believed he had found a star who could be as successful as The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson rolled into one.

Justin has never forgotten where he came from – and neither should we. It is tempting for the public to look at him now and think he is a very lucky boy. His lifestyle is certainly to be envied, but before fate dealt Justin the lucky hands of fame, fortune and success, it had already set him some tough, even heartbreaking, obstacles to overcome. His incredible life story has been a rollercoaster, from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and back again. It really is like something from the movie world, a blockbuster film with a fascinating plot full of drama and inspiration.

Let’s start at the beginning …

1

A Star is Born

Justin Drew Bieber was born at 12.56 a.m. on 1 March 1994 in a city in Canada called London. He grew up in a small city called Stratford, which lies in the Canadian province of Ontario. He has described his home city as ‘a little town of 30,000 in the middle of nowhere’, and he has also said that ‘nothing ever came out of Stratford’. Justin’s millions of fans around the world would disagree – and so might some Stratford residents. Those who have studied their Canadian history would point out that, as well as Justin, other famous people have lived in Stratford, including Thomas Edison – the man who invented the light bulb. But for millions of girls around the world, the only person to have come out of the town who really matters is Justin Drew Bieber.

So what is the area Justin grew up in really like? Stratford is a charming and mostly tranquil place, which was voted ‘the prettiest city in the world’ in 1997, when Justin was merely a three-year-old toddler. It is named after the English market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, an area most famous for being the birthplace and childhood home of the celebrated playwright William Shakespeare. The Canadian Stratford is rightly proud of the connection and it hosts an annual Shakespearean Festival across its theatres, outside one of which Justin busked as a child.

Just as the town he was born in is named after the capital city of England, some of Stratford’s roads and rivers are named after English places. Like most residents, Justin was charmed by the swans – both white and black – which glide gracefully along the River Avon (which, in keeping with the English theme, was originally called the Thames). Near the river is an impressive park that also held plenty of wonder for him as he grew up.

Justin’s parents, Jeremy and Pattie, were overjoyed by the birth of their child, a small but very healthy baby. They positively doted on him from the start and were naturally hugely proud of him. As most new parents do, they discussed which of them he most resembled. The truth was that he had inherited a mixture of their respective features: his eyes and nose resembled those of his father, but his lips were pretty much the same as his mother’s. Justin’s birth brought light and happiness into their lives.

However, the sad reality is that their marriage began to unravel in the years after Justin’s birth. Eventually, Jeremy and Pattie separated and divorced. Jeremy moved to Winnipeg in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Pattie, who was awarded full custody of their son, remained in Stratford where she herself had grown up. She changed her surname back to her maiden name and from then on was known as Pattie Mallette, though she agreed that Justin should keep his father’s surname of Bieber.

The family had never been especially wealthy, and once she became a single mother Pattie faced quite a struggle to keep them afloat. Consequently, Justin grew up in humble public housing in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of Stratford. Times could be tough, but he was a sweet child and, whatever financial challenges his mother faced, Justin was never short of love thanks to her devotion.

Looking back during an interview with the Canadian weekly magazine Maclean’s, Justin did his best to paint a fair and honest picture of his childhood. ‘I mean, some people have it misconstrued,’ he began. ‘I wasn’t poor. I definitely didn’t think of myself as not having a lot of money. But I definitely did not have a lot of money. I couldn’t afford to get a lot of new clothes a lot of times. But I had a roof over my head. I was very fortunate. I had my grandparents, I saw them a lot, they were very kind. So I grew up getting everything that I wanted.’

Pattie loved Justin and wanted the best for him in life. A deeply religious woman, she prayed to God every day, asking Him to allow her son to succeed. She took Justin to church most weekends and he was quickly aware of the sense of belonging that churchgoers can find. He came from a small, two-person family but when he stepped inside their local church he would discover an extended family in the shape of its congregation, which brought him added and much-needed warmth and emotional security. It did the same for his mother, who found she could do with more of both these things herself.

Most significantly, Justin loved the music that was part of every church service. Pattie sang in a church band and her young boy was mesmerized by the hymns and joyful tunes that resonated around the church during services. Pattie had dreams of performing in other ways too. Growing up, her ambition had been to become an actress, but those aspirations were put on hold once she became not just a mother, but a single mother.

As she has recalled since, it was a real struggle for her to keep herself and Justin fed, clothed and housed. ‘We were living below the poverty line,’ said Pattie, somewhat contesting Justin’s memories of the time. ‘We had a roof over our heads and we had food in the house, but we struggled.’ To keep them afloat she had to work extremely hard. ‘I worked two jobs just to make ends meet,’ she said. ‘But we had all the essentials.’

Occasionally, her parents, Bruce and Diane Dale, would help out with some much-needed funds, as well as regular moral support. Diane was part of the Stratford establishment, working as a custodian in the municipal headquarters, though she has since retired.

Someone who observed Justin closely from an early age is Chad Ritter, a guy who acted as an unofficial ‘big brother’ figure to the young boy. Ritter befriended Pattie as Justin was growing up and therefore was able to observe the future pop sensation at close hand during his formative years. Ritter would drive to Stratford at the weekends to help entertain Justin. They went bowling, played pool and Laser Quest. Fun times for both of them. Ritter said Justin was ‘a little bit of a smart aleck, a comedian, a jokester, a class clown sort of kid. He likes to get a reaction, to mess around.’

He described Justin’s living arrangements as rather humble. ‘They lived in a basement apartment, two bedrooms, in a big complex on the back-end part of Stratford,’ said Ritter. ‘His mom was kind of struggling. She didn’t have full-time work. She couldn’t always afford stuff for Justin.’ However, Ritter insists that this was ultimately to Justin’s advantage in one sense. ‘I think the financial and living situation definitely helped Justin grow up a little quicker, because he started out with nothing. You can’t get the average kid to understand the responsibilities or do what he does.’

Somehow, Pattie and Justin got by, but they were rarely more than comfortable at best. ‘I grew up with not a lot of money,’ Justin said. ‘We never owned a house.’ Although he was aware that they were at the poorer end of the riches scale, Justin speaks with fondness of his early years, which he described as ‘A regular kid life – pretty normal’. From the start, though, he seemed destined to be anything but regular or normal. Pattie’s daily prayers for Justin were that he would one day become a modern-day version of the biblical prophet Samuel, who had been a voice to his generation. She even hoped Justin might become a youth pastor, or that he might record religious songs for a Christian record label.

Soon after his birth, Justin began to show signs of a musical future. It all started during those Sunday-morning church services. ‘I would just, like, play on the [organ] keys and stuff,’ Justin remembered. ‘People would show me stuff and I would try and do what they did. I just liked music, I really had a passion for music.’ It is a passion that he seemed destined to fulfil from the beginning.

On the day Justin was born the pop charts were being dominated by diva singer Mariah Carey. In Britain she was at Number 1 in both the singles and album charts. The year 1994 was also a momentous one for world events. Nelson Mandela became the first black leader of South Africa; a huge earthquake hit Los Angeles, killing twenty people; in Britain the Channel Tunnel connecting England and France was opened. In show business, one of the biggest stories of the year was the marriage of American pop star Michael Jackson to the daughter of rock’n’roll legend Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie.

Of course, Justin was just a baby when these events took place, but as his love of music grew in subsequent years he quickly became a convert to Jackson’s material, which had a big impact on him. Two of his favourite albums of all time are Thriller and Bad, which Jackson released in the 1980s, before Justin was even born. Both are such classic collections of infectious pop songs that they continue to be popular among people who were not alive when they were first released. Between them these albums have now sold around 100 million copies – somewhere among that total are the copies bought by Justin, who always loves the thrill of buying a new album.

People have sometimes compared the early career of Jackson with Justin’s first steps in the industry. Certainly the tender age at which they became famous means there are similarities. However, while Justin first became known in his teenage years, Jackson was just eleven when the Jackson 5 released their first single in 1968. Justin was fifteen when he first released a song – an old-timer in comparison!

But he has been hugely influenced by Jackson. ‘I was very inspired by him in his past,’ said Justin, who rejected the suggestion that he is too young to understand the legacy left by Jackson. ‘I definitely do understand it,’ he said. ‘Like, I grew up listening to Michael a lot. My mum listened to him and I watched him on YouTube; I still watch him on YouTube. I do understand what a great artist he was and that he really influenced pop.’ As well as enjoying Jackson’s songs, Justin also loved those of the soul legend Stevie Wonder, who began his own career on the same Motown label as Jackson.

The first song he loved was, he said, ‘God is Bigger Than the Boogie Man from [the animated series] VeggieTales. And when I was, like, seven or six, Boyz II Men’s On Bended Knee. My mom used to play the album over and over. I would go to my bedroom and try to do the vocal acrobatics.’

While Justin has been inspired by some artists, including Jackson, he is clear that he has always tried to stay true to himself and choose his own path. ‘I had people I looked up to,’ he said of those days, ‘but I would never try to be like anybody.’ He added, ‘I’ve learnt a lot from listening to Michael Jackson and Boyz II Men, though.’

One of Justin’s favourite Jackson songs is ‘I’ll Be There’, which was released in 1970. The sweet promises of loyalty and devotion in the lyrics are much the same as those in some of Justin’s own songs, and Justin has performed the track beautifully with his guitar. However, as he said, he was never a big fan of any particular pop act as a child and perhaps because of this he has at times found his fans’ hysterical reactions to him a little confusing to deal with.

Justin is most famed for his smooth, sweet voice but his top