One Less Lonely Boy: Justin Bieber’s Journey

By Tatum Jenkins

Justin Bieber’s new documentary, released October 30, begins with Bieber sitting in a chair, notebook in his hand, as he writes “What would I tell my sixteen year old self?” For the next twenty-five minutes, he attempts to tell everything he wished he could tell his younger self by detailing the triumphs and struggles of his past and present. 

One scene in particular that reveals much about his life is the moment when Bieber and two members of his team, Scooter Braun, and Allison Kaye watch the “Lonely” music video. In the video, a young Justin Bieber sits in a changing room in his signature all-white attire, staring back at himself in a mirror. There’s an emphasis of the empty space around the child; the audience is meant to perceive his solitude as disturbing rather than peaceful. This is a lost boy.

Just as the title of his new single and video suggests, Bieber’s rise to stardom has been “lonely.” A boy plucked from the depths of YouTube by Usher, his origin story seems like a myth. All of a sudden he wasn’t just a  boy, he was Justin Bieber, and he had many more responsibilities than the old version of himself. The new Justin Bieber also had thousands of girls from all over the world screaming his name, which can definitely do something to a kid.

With the release of his first single “One Time,” Justin Bieber soon became a household name. He became known for his hairstyle, his purple hoodie, and high vocal range, not yet touched by puberty. All of the crying girls and his “One Less Lonely Girl” stunt at his concerts – where a member of his team would pick a girl from the crowd and she would go on stage to be serenaded by Bieber – became trademarks of his career. Watching the “One Less Lonely Girl” segment of his shows is difficult rather than endearing now; watching a fifteen-year-old boy smoothly “seduce” another girl his age is uncomfortable. It’s equally sad that he knows the exact moves to make: putting his arm around her, touching her face, putting his hand over hers, the softening of the eyes. He knows all of this before he knows what actual love is or what it means to live a normal life. And when you have thousands of people every night telling you they love you, when are you actually going to know if it’s real or not?

But everyone knows how his story goes. After years of success and a squeaky-clean image, he exploded. It’s not an unfamiliar storyline for child stars, but it’s still a tragic one. A DUI, addiction enabled by everyone around him, an on-and-off relationship, and declining mental health drastically changed the way everyone viewed him. While it was a hayday for the media, who were eating up every scandal Bieber left in his wake, underneath it all was a boy, traumatized by years of fame, who didn’t know how to cope.

A few years later, he decided to take accountability in a roundabout way. Embarking on what people now call his “apology tour,” he took to multiple media outlets making statements that expressed his responsibility for his actions and made an album, Purpose, that was essentially dedicated to forgiveness. However, it was a short-lived tour as he cancelled it to make space to deal with his mental health, and the entire world waited for Bieber to return.

All of these events seem to come full circle in this moment of the documentary. When the video for “Lonely” ended, it felt like everyone was holding their breath, trying to think of the right thing to say. Is there a right thing to say? How does his team come to terms with the fact that his pain was indirectly caused by them? After viewing the video, Braun said, “If I could do it all over again, I would’ve had you in therapy day one, having someone separate from all of us to talk to and express everything.” Amidst every emotion the people in the room expressed, one stands out: regret. Regret that no one stepped in earlier. That no one gave him more guidance. That he didn’t have a normal childhood. Bieber remarked on that sort of grief when he said, “I actually teared up in that video when I was watching Jacob Tremblay...play me. I just had no idea what was to come. I had no idea that this life would take me by storm. I had no idea that I would just get sucked up by all this stuff.”

However, triumph accompanies this sense of sadness. At the end of the video to the song, the now 26-year-old Bieber looks at the child onstage and a moment of compassion and sorrow is born. As Braun said to Bieber, “I’m watching it and I’m like, ‘Wow, there are so many tragedies that could’ve been avoided.’ But then, by the end, I’m like, ‘There is he though...And ...well, this is a celebration.” While the video is meant to express everything negative Bieber experienced as a child star, it also demonstrates how far he’s come and the process of making peace with the events of his life and career. This doesn’t mean his suffering has ended; trauma like what he’s experienced is not easily “cured.” It is, though, coming to terms with his pain – he’s a survivor and a victim of the child star circuit.