Scooter began to talk to the kids like friends instead of fans. Scooter knows them and they know him, so if he asks for something, most of the time, we can make it happen. Sometimes they get so loud that they can’t hear what he is trying to say. On this particular night though, they were especially cool.
“I want you to listen. See those guys over there? They are Justin’s buddies, Ryan and Chaz. Justin was upstairs and he thought that he couldn’t be normal and come down and skateboard. We know you guys respect him enough to give him this moment and share it with him. That is more special than anything. I want to make an agreement with you guys. He is going to come down here and at the right moment we will come over and Justin will do a big group picture with you guys. And we will share something special that a lot of fans have never had. You will get to see him be normal with his friends for one night. We are not going to yell at him and take pictures. We are not going to ask for autographs. We are going to let him be a normal kid for one night. Is it a deal?”
And just like that, they said that it was a deal.
As soon as Scooter started to walk away one of my fans yelled out, “Tell Justin that we want him to be normal.”
I walked out and said, “I heard that. Thank you. Tonight, I am just going to be normal. I really appreciate it.” And I did—big time.
I skateboarded for about an hour and a half. Literally, all of the fans sat down on the pavement and watched me without a fuss or a scene.
As promised, when I was done, I walked over and took pictures in groups of ten with all of them. I have the most incredible fans in the world—and I am grateful for each and every one. As we took picture after picture, I thanked them and then went back upstairs to get ready for our show. There is a funny thing about this story, though. When my fans don’t surround the hotels, I actually do get upset because knowing that they’re there gives me comfort. And who knows, maybe more stories like this can take place with you! Thanks!
Finding time to be a regular teen is pretty hard—but not impossible. My fans respect me and allow me to be normal when I need that space.
Justin was acting a little funky before his show in Orlando—I knew something was off, but I didn’t know what. He and I got into an argument, something we rarely do, especially right before he goes on stage. I can’t even remember what it was about, but I know it wasn’t anything of substance. One of my buddies was there when it happened and overheard the exchange. “Man, are you sure you want to yell at him like that just before he hits the stage?”
“You don’t understand. When Justin hits the stage, he flips a switch—so anything that happens before will not affect him.” I was positive of what I was saying so I wasn’t worried our words would impact his performance that night.
Sure enough, Justin put on an amazing show. My friend couldn’t believe that he had been so angry with me and then let it disappear the moment he walked on stage. It didn’t surprise me at all. The kid is a born performer. When he is on stage, he’s all in. When he steps off the stage, the adrenaline stays high for a little while but he eventually gets back to being a normal teenager. Admittedly, I was bugged by our exchange before the show and wanted to know what was up with him. So when the concert was over, I looked at Justin and said, “Team meeting.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
I pulled everyone who was relevant into a private room, looked at Justin and simply said, “What’s up? You are acting weird. What is wrong with you?”
That’s when Justin did something I’ve rarely seen him do. He broke down and started to cry.
I cleared the room. It was obvious we needed some quality one-on-one time to have a serious talk. Justin sat down and told me he didn’t like being famous and couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. He talked about how he can’t go out and do stuff because there are always thousands of kids outside his hotel. Everywhere he goes people are in his face. He explained that on one hand, he loves seeing everyone because he knows they care about him but at the time, he was also a self-conscious 16-year-old who just wanted to be normal. He was doing his best to express how he was feeling and I was doing my best to really hear him out so he felt safe, secure and acknowledged.
When Justin finished, I took a deep breath and said, “There are two options here—we can do the teenage pop star thing with no long-term career plan and we can ride this thing for a few years and your career will be done—and I mean over—or we can stick on our current plan, which is following in the creative footsteps of Michael Jackson, to build a long-term career that gives you a shot at something that only he has done, which is a career that will stand the test of time.
If you want the Michael Jackson career, you have to grasp that you are never going to be normal again. This is never going to go away and you have to come to terms with the fact that the world is now a part of your life and you are just as much a part of them as they are a part of you. I can’t make the decision for you, kid. You need to decide now what you want this to be.”
Justin was very quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. But then he looked at me and said, “I want to meet Kobe Bryant.”
I was a little taken aback by that response.
“Out of everything I thought you would say, that is the last thing I expected! Why do you want to meet Kobe Bryant?”
“Because I feel he has chased Michael Jordan’s ghost his entire career and no matter what he does, people will never say that he was as good as Michael Jordan. And I want to know how he handles that. And I want to know if it is worth it.”
Admittedly, he had a point. So I agreed and said, “OK, I am going to set you up to meet Kobe Bryant.”
Just before we left for the hotel I looked at him and said, “Regardless of your decision, I made a promise to you when you were 13 years old.”
“I know.”
I had Justin stand in front of me so I could look him right in the eyes.
“I will always have your back, but I am also going to push you to be the best that you can be as long as you want it.”
He looked at me as sincere as I’ve ever seen him and said, “I am cool and I want it. I understand, but it is just hard sometimes.”
And you know what? He was right. It is hard sometimes, but life is hard and the best things worth having in life take a lot of hard work, determination, and perseverance.
Justin and I stayed at the arena talking until 1:30 in the morning. We eventually hugged it out, like we always do when things get to this place. By the time we were ready to leave, all the cars were gone except this one local guy who had an old beat-up Toyota. There were still some kids waiting for Justin outside the arena. We figured they’d never know it was him in that old Toyota, so we put him in the back seat and made our way to the hotel.
Ever since that night, whenever things get tough, we talk about Orlando. He has never brought it up again like that but there are times I can tell those feelings are beginning to surface for him.
For the most part, Justin has come to terms that this is what his life is and he has learned how to enjoy it. That was a couple of years ago, and these days, he doesn’t really know anything else.
That exchange took place pretty early in his career, within our first 30 shows, so I understood his confusion. Everything was new and admittedly a little overwhelming for all of us. Since then Justin has performed in and sold out 180 arenas and stadiums, has performed for the President of the United States and his family three times, has sung to more than a billion people around the world on New Year’s Eve and has become a world-famous icon. Even with all of that under his belt, to me he will always be The Kid.
I always encourage Justin to live an authentic life and to do his best to be real. I am proud to say that because of his mom and everyone else who has been around him from the start, Justin has had consistency in his life. Every kid, famous or not, needs that, and that is a big element so he can stay pretty normal in a not-normal circumstance.
Not long after my talk
with Scooter in Orlando, as promised, he set up a meeting between Kobe Bryant and me. We met for dinner in LA so I could talk to him about the Michael Jordan thing. It was just the two of us—no one else. When I asked Kobe how he viewed his place in basketball compared to MJ, he started to tell me that it gives him something to shoot for and at the end of his career he hoped people would see what he accomplished along the way. He talked about how he wants to be the best player he can be. He said he can look at someone like Michael Jordan as a role model, but he can’t worry about other people’s comparisons.
I was blown away by his outlook. I felt connected to every word of what he was saying and wanted to know even more. I was curious, so I asked him about what type of music he listens to to help get him pumped up for games. Kobe looked at me kind of confused.
“When we were at the Olympics D Wade and Lebron listened to music, but I don’t understand that. I am an assassin and ready to kill right now.” He was kind of intense and then suddenly broke into a big smile.
I loved that warrior mentality. Kobe is always on and ready to compete, two traits I think are awesome and aspire to have in my own life.
I’d heard that Kobe knew Michael Jackson so we talked about him for a while too. He told me Michael used to say that he would study the greats, their movement and their songs—everything so he could absorb their knowledge and experience from the past. That philosophy made so much sense and became something I immediately wanted to adopt for myself and my career going forward. “Practice Makes Perfect,” but I like to take that saying and change it a little to “Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.” If you practice bad methods you’ll get bad habits. But if you practice the right way with the right mentors you can become great.
For the first time, I think I understood that I will never be normal again. I can’t have normalcy in my life, but I don’t have to get crazy about it. A lot of people count on me, so I have to choose what to do and what not to do. My sanity is just as important as my craft. I want to grow up as an artist, as an entertainer, and I want to perfect it along the way. What I got from Kobe that night is that all I can do is strive to be my best, and the rest will come.
Work hard. Play hard. Box hard.
When we are on tour, Allison usually arranges amazing field trips for us, especially when we are traveling to places all around the world. Instead of reading about things in a textbook, I get to go see them in person. Sometimes that works out, and other times, not so much. Like when we were in Paris—I wanted to check out the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and walk the famous streets of the city of lights. When we hit the Louvre, however, things got a little crazy. There were thousands of people there for the same reason I was—to check out the legendary pieces of art. But as word spread that I was in the museum, suddenly the Mona Lisa seemed like not the only thing to take a picture of. How is it possible that people would be more interested in snapping a picture of me over her? It made no sense to me, but before I knew it there was a crowd of people chasing me through the museum, trying to take my picture. Honestly—I am not as interesting as the amazing art in that museum. Nonetheless, I had to leave because it was getting disruptive for everyone else.
On the other hand, sometimes being me has its privileges. Like when we were in Barcelona, I was invited to play soccer with the Barcelona team during one of their training sessions. Nobody really gets that opportunity. My friend Ryan was with me, who I grew up playing soccer with back in Canada. We were both on the All-Star traveling soccer team as kids, so being asked to play with Barcelona football (that’s what they call soccer) team was really exciting and a dream come true for us. They actually let us get on the field and practice with them—even giving me my own custom team jersey. It was really fun and I have to say, we held our own with those guys (well, maybe they let us!). I scored on their goalie, so that was pretty cool. They said that we were the only people that had kicked around with the Barcelona guys all year. It was a really big honor.
When we were in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a local businessman invited me and some of the crew to play golf on his private home course. Yup. He had his own golf course right in his backyard. It was insane! Each hole was designed to be a replica of his favorite holes from famous courses from around the world. It was a last-minute invitation, so none of us had clubs or proper golf clothes—still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so we had to say yes! I kept playing a joke on everyone by loosening up the cords that hold the clubs to the back of the cart, so when they punched their accelerator their bag would fall off. Eventually someone caught on to my trick and loosened mine, which rolled all the way down a big hill. I had to fetch my bag and carry it back to the cart—while everyone laughed.
Hang on, had I just been pranked? Or did the guys just get so fed up with me that I got a dose of my own mischievous ways?
Either way, no one took credit for the bag trick, but I know who you are and you better believe that my revenge will be sweet. Oh yeah, your day is coming! Sweet, sweet revenge will be mine.
Getting my golf on—of course, I shot a hole-in-one!
Carrying my bag up the hill—I will get revenge!
My philosophy—love as much as possible, and spread the love as far as you can. Sao Paolo, that one was for you.
Playing a show in Liverpool was an absolute dream come true for me because it’s where the Beatles came from. I was psyched to do the Beatles walking tour around the city, but in the end that wasn’t possible.
If America was invaded by Beatlemania in the 1960s then Liverpool got a dose of Biebermania in 2011. The crowds that gathered outside my hotel had grown so big by the time I tried to head out on the Beatles tour, the police actually threatened to arrest my team if they attempted to leave again—so I had no chance of leaving the building. There were too many kids outside for them to control. They simply didn’t have the manpower to handle the size of the crowd. They actually had to shut down the streets! It was the craziest thing I had seen during our Europe tour. Things got so intense that security wouldn’t even let me out on my balcony! About the only thing I could do was hang in my hotel room and play video games until show time.
The next day, I eventually got permission to keep my promise to visit the Liverpool Children’s Hospital. Even though I had prearranged the visit with the hospital, none of the kids knew I was coming, so it was a total surprise to them and super important to do. When I walked through the door, the last person they expected to see was me! Liverpool was unforgettable for many reasons, but most of all for the time I spent at the Children’s Hospital that day. It was really special to see their smiles, especially when I gave each of them stuffed animals I had brought along to hand out. Sharing those moments with kids like that really makes my day.
I always try my best to fit in visits to local children’s hospitals or meet a kid from the Make-A-Wish foundation. During the North American leg of the tour, I did 86 cities and tried to see a Wish kid at each stop along the way. A couple of hours of my time is just a small gesture I can make to give back to others, something I really love to do. It is sad and sometimes really hard to see so many sick kids, but it is also motivating to see how they don’t let their diseases get to them and how strong they are to be in the fight for their lives. Spending time with them is a reminder to me about what’s really important in life and how lucky I am to be doing what I love when so many other people will never get that chance.
At Liverpool Children’s Hospital. It’s so important to me to give back to others.
My show in Berlin was extra special because I wanted to surprise my mom with a birthday cake and give it to her on stage during the show. Allison (who handles my day-to-day management) went out and found an awesome cake that we had ready backstage. My mom wasn’t expecting me to acknowledge her birthday during the show, but c’mon, how couldn’t I, right? When I stopped the show, I had Kenny bring her out on stage. I could tell she was nervous. She kept asking, “What’s going on?” She always acts like she doesn’t know what is ha
ppening, but let’s be real, moms always know what’s up!
When she got onto the stage, I had a big cake with candles lit waiting for her so the audience and I could sing her “Happy Birthday.” When she leaned forward to blow out her candles, her hair fell into them and caught on fire! The flame quickly burned from the bottom of her hair to the top in a quick whoosh. Mom jerked back as I quickly grabbed her hair and put out the flames before we had a potential situation. It all happened so fast that I am not sure she even realized what had occurred until I had already put out the fire. I could tell she was still embarrassed, and by then, she could smell her burnt hair, so I leaned over and said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I saved you!”
Later that night I surprised my mom with one more special gift she wasn’t expecting.
When I was in the studio recording new music in France, I also recorded the Boyz II Men song “Mama,” just for her. My stage manager, Scrappy, was the only other person who knew I had done this. When we finished the recording, he liked the song so much he asked if he could give it to his mom too!
For her birthday this year, I recorded another song to honor my mom called “Turn to You.” I released it as a single on Mother’s Day 2012 with all proceeds going to charities to help single moms.
Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.
Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started (100% Official) Page 2
