Several of Justin Bieber’s former collaborators have spoken to The Hollywood Reporter to share their concern for his wellbeing. ‘Whatever he’s going through, I pray for him and hope he’s OK, said Poor Bear, who co-wrote several of Bieber’s hit singles including ‘Despacito’, ‘Where Are U Now’ and ‘What Do You Mean?’.

‘Seeing him disintegrate like this… it’s watching the embodiment of someone not living their purpose,’ an ex-team member told the publication. ‘He’s lost. There’s no protecting him because there’s no one there willing to say no to him. You say no, you get blown out.’

All has not seemed well with Justin Bieber for several months now. ‘I think I hate myself sometimes when I feel myself start to become inauthentic,’ he recently wrote on Instagram, among a sea of erratic posting. ‘I got anger issues, I wanna grow and not react so much,’ another read. Amid constant reports about his emotional wellbeing, his representatives recently were forced to deny he’s not using drugs – having publicly declared himself sober in 2014.

It’s been four years since Bieber last released new music. For a while, it seemed as though he was choosing to live quietly with his wife Hailey Bieber and their son Jack, who was born last August. In recent months, however, Bieber has been sharing more of himself online.

On 3 April, Bieber launched his new fashion brand, Skylrk, by sharing an animated video of himself riding a scooter running out of battery to a house that he later burns down. The remnants of the house include the smiley face logo from his first clothing brand, Drew House, which he started in 2019 with his former friend Ryan Good, and waiting outside is wife Hailey with a pushchair. The pair then kiss and walk off into the sunset.

Anyone who has followed Bieber’s career will know he was founded on YouTube in 2008 by talent manager Scooter Braun, who proceeded to manage him for 15 years and helped turn Bieber into one of the biggest pop stars of the 21st century. Last summer, Bieber parted ways from his longtime team, including Braun who is now retired, and has decided to self-manage. The fact Bieber was riding a scooter in the recent video, then, does not feel like a coincidence.

Since Bieber has started self-managing, he has reportedly enlisted the help of his new ‘inner circle’ comprised of people who share his devout Christian faith and fans have also noticed a shift in his behaviour.

Bieber’s Instagram posts have become more cryptic, with some fans arguing that he has used social media to mock his ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez and her engagement to Benny Blanco. Earlier this year, fans noticed that he had unfollowed Hailey on Instagram. He attempted to clear this up by writing ‘someone went on my account and unfollowed my wife’.

He might not have intentionally unfollowed Hailey, but Bieber did unfollow several of his former associates, including Scooter Braun, Allison Kaye, who ran Bieber’s affairs for almost two decades and resigned in January, Good, who was best man at his wedding, and longtime security chief Kenny Hamilton (who reportedly shielded Bieber from the accused sex trafficker Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs).

In the Hollywood Reporter piece, Chris Anokute, a music executive who has worked with Katy Perry, said of Bieber, ‘He’s managing himself through his own family office now, and there’s scepticism on if he can do it alone. He’s leaving home for the first time. He’s building a business without the team that took him here. I’m sure he’s feeling that pressure. But he can [do it].’

‘At the end of the day,’ he continued, ‘Justin Bieber is a star, and consumers still want Justin Bieber… He’s showing a lot of courage and foresight on what the industry is going to look like in the future.’

However, Mario Lavandeira, better known as Perez Hilton, is more cynical: ‘Justin Bieber is like a male Britney Spears: He’s trolling, partly because he wants attention, and also because he thinks he’s so funny.’

Others have argued that Bieber was ‘protected too much’ as a child star and not able to learn from his behaviour. This stance in particular feels incredibly off the mark.

While it’s true that Bieber has made mistakes in the past, unlike most teenagers around the world his played out on a world stage. He became famous in 2009 at the age of 15 and experienced astronomical fame almost overnight. By 2014, he was arrested for drag racing and driving under the influence in Miami and pleaded guilty to careless driving. That same year he was charged with assault after allegedly striking a limousine driver, however his lawyers said he was not guilty, and the charges were dropped.

Aside from endless rumours about his personal life, there were also multiple instances of anti-social behaviour, including one video of Bieber urinating into a restaurant mop bucket and shouting, ‘F*ck Bill Clinton.’ Bieber allegedly apologised to the former president after this incident.

In other words, his was not your typical teenage experience.

‘He never felt the consequence of his actions because we were so worried about the illusion of Justin Bieber being ruined,’ offered one insider. ‘It wouldn’t have ended his career. He would have felt the sting, though.’ A lot of the people who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter seemed to use it as an opportunity to rehash old grievances about Bieber, perhaps underestimating the psychological impact child fame has had on his life.

Bieber, however, has been the first to talk it. His recent behaviour might be cause for widespread concern, but he has spoken about his struggles in no uncertain terms in the past. On an Instagram post in 2019, Bieber wrote, ‘By 20, I made every bad decision you could have thought of and went from one of the most loved and adored people in the world to the most ridiculed, judged and hated person in the world.’

‘I started doing pretty heavy drugs at 19,’ he continued, ‘and abused all of my relationships. I became resentful, disrespectful to women and angry. I became distant to everyone who loved me, and I was hiding behind a shell of a person that I had become.’ He went on to ask, ‘Have you noticed the statistics of child stars and the outcome of their life? There is an insane pressure and responsibility put on a child’s brain,’ adding that, ‘emotions, frontal lobes (decision making) aren’t developed yet. […] But when you add the pressure of stardom it does something to you that is quite unexplainable.’

For anyone to view Bieber’s recent behaviour as a publicity stunt or an opportunity to call for new music feels like a gross misjudgement – and one that fails to take into account a pattern of behaviour we have seen before. One that Bieber himself has warned us about.

As Anokute added, ‘He’s been a winner for 16 years. Everyone goes through stuff; people have struggles financially, relationship problems. Do you know what it’s like to be a man at 30? To be a father? He’s living his life. Let him evolve. Let him grow. He’s gone through the fire and this is a phoenix moment for him. He’s going to rise.’

Let’s hope he’s right.