Looking back: It all started in the early 2000s on the video platform YouTube. Anyone who watches the completely tattooed singer alongside model Hailey Baldwin today will hardly recognize the blonde boy from the pixelated videos from back then. He sang Chris Brown’s “With You” on a sofa, with posters of rapper Tupac and cartoon character Bart Simpson hanging behind him. In front of the camera, this twelve or 13-year-old boy from the small Canadian town of London in the province of Ontario still seems to be a little ashamed, but he sings R&B songs with passion.
Scooter Braun was the name of the agent who, according to his own statement, accidentally clicked on one of these videos, recognized the talent and contacted Bieber’s mother Pattie Mallette through Bieber’s school. He brought Bieber to Atlanta for test recordings, where the boy met his idol Usher. With his help, the 15-year-old soon signed his first record deal with the Def Jam label and moved to Atlanta with his mother, who took care of him alone.
“A year later, the baby I diapered was playing at Madison Square Garden and singing for the President of the United States. “It’s crazy,” Mallette once recalled in the New York Times. That year, Bieber performed at the famous New York venue with Usher and Miley Cyrus and sang for President Barack Obama and his family in Washington at Christmas. And that was just the beginning. Bieber’s first single “One Time” and the EP “My World” were already on the market. Together with the album “My World 2.0” and the single “Baby” with rapper Ludacris, Bieber placed himself at the heart of Western mainstream pop with his brilliant, energetic R&B singing.
And once YouTube made Bieber famous, the portal continued to be an indicator of his success: In 2011, “Baby” became the first video to reach more than 500 million clicks. And so it continued: Bieber followed up his great successes with “Believe” and “Purpose” in 2012 and 2015.
After the hits “Boyfriend” and “Where Are Ü Now”, for which he won his first Grammy with Diplo and Skrillex, collaborations became important for Bieber: his mega hit “Despacito” with Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee even became the first video in 2018, which reached the five billion click mark.
And today, Bieber still sells hundreds of thousands of albums – most recently “Justice” in 2021. And he has hits like “STAY” with rapper The Kid Laroi. But it seems as if the once milk-faced, tousled-haired teenager has lost a little part of his brand with every turn. Stars like Taylor Swift (34) and Miley Cyrus (31), on the other hand, continue to win at the Grammys and dominate pop culture.
However, Twitter, TV appearances and scandals helped Bieber turn the stage character into a gossip celebrity. The boy with the doe-brown eyes came of age in front of the assembled world public. The headlines revolved around alcohol, expensive cars, a woman’s complaint about his alleged paternity and neighbors whose house he was said to have thrown eggs at.
In 2018, Bieber married Hailey Baldwin, whom he had known for almost ten years at that point – and wanted to start a new chapter. He told Vogue a few years ago that he was thinking more about “character stuff” after his highs. Less about music and more about being a good person and good husband.
Bieber may be going through a period of change, but he remains a global star. Rapper Usher even invited him to perform with him at the Superbowl halftime show a few months ago. But Bieber declined, as Usher revealed: “I think it might be because he just wants to tell a different story at the moment.”