Justin Bieber opens up to Complex about his life, fame, love and beliefs
In the past couple of years Justin Bieber went from teen pop star, to adult right before our eyes. Like all celebrities, it seems like time is accelerated and they age at a faster than normal plebian rate. Whether you liked Justin or not isn't a question. You're going to hear about him and he's going to be on the radio. This is something I had to learn the hard way. I remember first hearing him when my mom made me take my little sister to see his “Never Say Never” movie back in 2011. I hated him right off the bat. He was smug and something about him made me want to punch him in the face yet there I was humming the tune to “One Less Lonely Girl” two days later. Fast forward a couple years and I was humming the tune of “Boyfriend” and now I can't stop listening to his tropical house esque tune to “What Do You Mean?”
Now, I can recall the first interview Justin did with complex, three years ago, because this was at the height of my self-proclaimed Hypebeast career. Complex was a must read for me. You know I had to be cultured, right? I couldn't just wear this Supreme t shirt without being able to talk to you about what was going on in the music scene anyways. I remember the article in particular because Justin kept saying the word “swaggy” and there was a pre roller coaster of events that included a DUI, smug deposition, and egging his neighbor’s house. In the years since that interview, it was like Justin did everything he could to not be likeable.
This time around, Justin sat down and it’s a different story. This time it's like seeing your cousin at Christmas all grown up and actually an adult by all standards. The last time you saw him, he thought he was black and was hanging out with the kids that got high in wood shop. He talks about wanting to be relatable and having people connect with him. While we can all relate to having fake friends who encourage you to do dumb shit by pumping you up. Justin was there only he had more money and all his stupid shit was at a greater and more visible stage. Perhaps the most relatable thing to me was when asked what he learned about falling in love at a young age and he responds
“Don’t fall in love. No, I’m just kidding. I learned a lot. I moved in with my girlfriend when I was 18. Started my own life with her. It was a marriage kind of thing. Living with a girl it was just too much at that age. But we were so in love. Nothing else mattered. We were all about each other. But when it’s like that and you get your value from that, people will always disappoint you. Your girl or your dude they're always going to disappoint you. Your full identity can’t be in that person. My identity was in her. Her identity was in me. When stuff would happen, I would lose my freakin’ mind, and she would lose her mind, and we would fight so hard because we were so invested in each other.”
We can all relate to some extent to this statement or situation. Let’s all be real and honest. When I say we all cried over having our heartbroken by a girl the first time and can universally agree that it sucks. We do some soul searching, drink a little, black out some, and maybe find Jesus. If you follow Justin on Snapchat (@rickthesizzler) you’ve seen videos of his Hypebeast Saint Laurent boot wearing and wide brim suede farmer hat sporting priest. When Justin gets asked about his faith he doesn’t hold back (do any Christians for that matter?)
“It’s like a girlfriend. If I have an awesome, bomb girlfriend, I’m gonna wanna show her off and go around and tell people my girl is the shit. I’m not gonna cheat on her because she’s the best. It’s like with God: The whole thing with religion is you present yourself holy and bring your offerings so that God can bless you, when the whole point of the relationship [should be], “No, I’m gonna do this because he loves me. I’m gonna do this because he’s amazing and not because [I] have to, [but] because [I] want to.” That’s the whole thing with religion that’s been throwing off the people. It’s not a “have to.” It should be just like a personal relationship. Like, “Hey, I love you because you first loved me.”
If there’s one thing to take away from this interview is Justin loves God and “… you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn’t make you a taco.” The ever so eloquent Mr. Justin Bieber folks, he’s grown a lot in the past couple of years but at the end of the day he’s still just 21.
See the full interview at Complex.