Justin Bieber has had a huge career, but it’s not been without some issues. Before becoming the respectable, engaged man we know today, there was a time when we thought the “Sorry” singer’s bad behavior, legal troubles, and partying would eventually cause his downfall. Luckily, it didn’t, but now Justin’s longtime friend and manager Scooter Braun, who also represents A-list celebs like Kanye West and Ariana Grande, revealed that he seriously thought he would lose him for a time.
On a recent episode of Van Lathan‘s The Red Pill podcast, Scooter explained that before Justin got healthy, he constantly feared that he would one day wake up to news of the star’s death. “There was a time when I would go to sleep almost every night – when he had the money to fly away from me — and I was worried every night that I was going to lose him,” he said.
He went on to say that he even prevented Justin from going on tour, revealing, “I thought he was going to die. I thought he was going to sleep one night and that he would have so much crap in his system that he would not wake up the next morning.” However, Justin was against this decision and fought him on it. “He used to yell and scream at me, and he wanted to put music out, he wanted to tour, but I thought if he did that, he would die. So, I just refused,” Scooter said.
Though Scooter didn’t straight up confirm that Justin was taking drugs at that time, he certainly alluded to it. The period of time Scooter is discussing mostly refers to 2014 when 19-year-old Justin was arrested for drag-racing a Lamborghini in Miami while under the influence.
Thankfully, Justin made the conscious decision to change his life around and take responsibility for his actions. He’s now engaged to Hailey Baldwin and seems happier than he’s ever been. “I think he made a conscious choice for himself to change, I think for a year and a half I failed miserably trying to help him because for a year and a half he didn’t change,” Scooter said. “It wasn’t until one day he woke up and said, ‘Hey I need to talk to you, I don’t want to be that person anymore.’”
Justin kept his promise because after putting on a brave face during his Comedy Central roast, he released “Where Are Ü Now” with Jack Ü, a collaboration that eventually propelled his comeback. Then came his tearful VMA performance which led to his chart-topping Purpose album in 2015. The rest is pretty much history. Though Justin continued to make headlines, the focus was less on his behavior and more on his on-again-off-again relationship with Selena Gomez.
But Scooter wanted to make one thing very clear: The man Justin is today is the result of his own decisions and no one else’s. “[Justin’s] extraordinary young man who’s been given an extraordinary life,” Scooter explained. “He used to complain, and he used to fight it and that’s when he got into a dark place, but when he accepted his responsibility and took a hard look at himself and not what everyone was doing, that’s when he owned it and he got healthy.”