Think Justin Bieber hit rock bottom back in 2014?
Think the singer was a complete mess after he was arrested for drunk driving and after he constantly berated the paparazzi and didn’t even seem to care one bit about his fans?
You actually have no idea, Scooter Braun now says.
Braun, who has served as Bieber’s manager throughout the course of his career and who has been tight with the artist for years, opened up this week to The Wall Street Journal Magazine.
The topic? Bieber.
Specifically, the depths to which Bieber plummeted during his fairly recent struggles.
“It was worse than people realized,” Braun told the publication. “I failed him day after day. We were living in hell because he was in such a dark place.”
In January of 2014, Bieber was arrested for drunk driving.
The incident seemed to be the culmination of a downward spiral in which Bieber partied too much and drove too fast.
However, Braun says here that things continued to get worse for the superstar over the next several months.
“I have inconveniences, and other people have problems. Mine feel important, but they’re not. They’re not life or death,” Braun told The Wall Street Journal crypically, prior to adding:
“Justin’s stuff got to a point where it was a problem.”
Based on that phrasing,it sounds like it was a life or death problem. Yikes.
“Some of the biggest people in the industry, people invested in Justin’s career, told me, ‘It’s over. Focus on something else. That kid is done,"” Braun explained.
But the manager has been with Bieber since Justin was a young teenager.
He wasn’t about to abandon his friend when he was needed the most.
“I made a promise to him when he was 13 that I would never give up on him. I plan on keeping that promise.”
Added Braun:
“He’s family. I think the relationship is more like a big brother, especially because he’s become a man.
“I think he’s seen the worst of himself, and to watch him rise out of it was amazing.”
Has Bieber risen out of it? We guess so.
He hasn’t been arrested in years and his fans still love him.
But he’s taken a strange break from making music and folks still have no idea why he let down so many people when he canceled his tour this year.
Bieber may not be in the kind of bad shape he was back then, but he also may have hit his career apex years ago and will never fully recover.
