Earlier this week, Justin Bieber’s longtime manager, Scooter Braun, sat down with Van Lathan’s The Red Pill podcast for an interview, revealing how the Bieb’s past bad behavior worried him to the point where he feared the young singer was going to die.
“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 gonna lose him,” Braun said. “That was the time when I was telling him he’s not allowed to work. 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. We weren’t making any money, it wasn’t like I was trying to take advantage. I didn’t want him to work, I wanted him to get healthy.”
Then, without revealing too much, such as what substances Bieber was abusing and the extent of its damage, Braun admits to having attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings when things got serious. “I thought he was going to die. I thought he was going to [go to] sleep one night and that he would have so much crap in his system that he would not wake up the next morning.”
Braun then explained when the “What Do You Mean?” singer decided to change, after trying to help him for a year and a half. “It wasn’t until one day he woke up and said, ‘Hey, I need to talk to you. I don’t want to be this person anymore,”’ Braun said. “And he made the decision to change, and actually put that into action, and the result is who he’s become today, and that is the result of his own decision, no one else’s.”
Then, Bieber’s manager went on to reflect on the scrutiny Bieber’s behavior received. “I think Justin is an extraordinary young man who has been given an extraordinary life and because of that, he cannot complain that he’s held to extraordinary standards . . . He used to complain, he used to fight it, and that’s kind of what got him into a dark place.”
Braun continued, “But when he accepted his responsibility and took a hard look at himself and not what everyone else was doing, that’s when he owned it, and he got healthy, and he got better, and he made the choice to change.”