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The sign on the door says “Mozart,” but it’s a safe bet that Wolfgang Amadeus never had a dressing room equipped with leather recliners, a super-sized flat-screen TV and an Xbox console. Nor, presumably, did his tour rider call for loaves of Wonder Bread, Cool Ranch Doritos, Fruit Roll-Ups and candy Swedish Fish.
Still, something is missing. Justin Bieber’s mom, Pattie Mallette, looks at the choice of Pop Tarts—strawberry and apple strudel—and clucks, “Where are the grape ones?” before scurrying off down the hall. The day has enough complications already. Pop’s reigning prodigy is suffering greatly from Denver’s thin mountain air. Dizzy with a splitting headache, the Stratford, Ont., teen has been snarling at anyone brave enough to enter his darkened tour bus, pull back the Spider-Man bedsheets, and try to wake him for a scheduled 2:30 p.m. interview.
Having two albums with combined global sales of 4.5 million and counting—My World and My World 2.0—apparently doesn’t buy that much rock star slack. Fifteen minutes later, his bodyguard Kenny, a former Atlanta radio DJ, strides through the door. Tucked in behind like a Smart car in an 18-wheeler’s slipstream is the world’s most famous 16-year-old.
The handshake is limp, and he’s got the resigned air of someone visiting the principal’s office, but every hair has been carefully swept forward into his signature, and oddly retro, mop-top. (Ringo Starr recently accused him of “stealing” his haircut.) The black V-neck, grey jeans and colour-coordinated Vans are crisp and new, betraying the hand of the stylist and “swagger coach” who travels as part of his entourage. He is perfectly polite. And for the tens of millions of young girls around the globe who have their bedrooms, school lockers and persons festooned with his image there is more good news: up close there is zero indication of impending adulthood. At just five foot six and 107 lb., without even a trace of peach fuzz, Justin Bieber seems destined to remain in his cuddly phase for a long time to come.
“It’s cool,” he says, summing up his sudden fame in the way only a teenage boy can. “There’s definitely a lot of people telling me I’m great and stuff, but I keep a group of people around me that keep me humble, like my mom and my manager.”
Three years ago, he was a small-town kid with an oversized voice busking for money outside Stratford’s Festival Theatre. (He used the summer’s proceeds to take Pattie, a single mom, to Disneyland, on their first-ever family vacation.) Videos she posted on YouTube of his covers of R & B hits by artists like Chris Brown and Ne-Yo became a tween sensation, drawing the attention of Scott “Scooter” Braun, an Atlanta music impresario. In 2008, he moved Justin and Pattie to Georgia, and put the then 14-year-old to work with various writers, all the while feeding the Internet frenzy. The first single, One Time, was released online in July 2009. The album My World debuted at No. 1 in Canada when it came out last November. Just four months later, the follow-up disc, My World 2.0, topped the charts in both Canada and the U.S. The video for his single Baby has racked up 240 million YouTube hits since February.
How big a phenomenon has Justin Bieber become? Since last fall, he’s performed twice for America’s first family. (Malia and Sasha Obama are big fans.) He had a spot on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve broadcast, and Macy’s July 4 celebrations. He’s been the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Oprah dedicated an episode to him and his fans. And it’s not just a North American thing. The Stratford kid, who had never been on a plane until he went to visit Mickey Mouse, has now been to Europe six times, Japan twice, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Ask for the highlight of one of the most remarkable years in pop history and Bieber will tell you that it’s a “toss-up” between meeting the President and Oprah. “I watched her growing up. She’s amazing.” Drill deeper and he’ll admit that seeing the L.A. Lakers play the Denver Nuggets from courtside seats on his 16th birthday, with close to a dozen buddies from back home, was the real moment. “Kobe Bryant’s my guy,” he says. The NBA final’s MVP even knew who he was—his daughters are fans too.
