![]() Then it was ‘Oh, he’s so cute,’ and then ‘Why don’t you sing this song or that song?’ I said, ‘Oh, they want you to sing this song-let’s try.’ It was a horrible camera I’m a terrible cameraman it was awful sound, very raw video-but I put them up. “I put up a little video on YouTube for Grandma and some relatives to see,” Pattie says, “and the next thing we knew, all these strangers were clicking onto it, probably because they recognized the song. When he was 12, he entered a singing contest, sang Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” and won second prize. Even as a one-year-old who was barely standing, I remember him banging on tables, banging in rhythm.” Soon, he was singing along to her Boyz II Men albums, playing drums, picking up a guitar, and playing piano. She says, “I always knew Justin was gifted. (Justin still has a relationship with his father, 36-year-old Jeremy Bieber.) Pattie had several jobs, struggled financially, and brought her son up in the small town of Stratford, Ontario (home of the well-known Shakespeare festival). Justin Bieber’s story starts in Canada with Pattie, who separated from Justin’s father when their son was 10 months old. She’s savvy about the world of show business and says, “We don’t have yes-men around him. While she admits that it sounds “cheesy,” she clearly believes it, and although she’s a petite woman who looks more like a Justin fan than like his mother, she’s fiercely protective of her son. She is now convinced that she and Justin were put on earth to bring light and inspiration to the world. It was while she was recovering in the hospital that, she says, she literally had a personal encounter with God and after that became a Christian. She suffered sexual abuse as a child, was “wild” as a teenager, had experiences with drugs and alcohol, and, at age 17, tried to commit suicide. Several hours before Justin’s Atlantic City concert, Pattie Mallette talks at length about her own rough youth. And you just can’t help it-you’re screaming at the top of your lungs.” But why all the screaming? “Because you’re watching the videos and the pictures online and listening to the music,” says Kaye, “then, finally, you see him. Also, I think it’s nice for a girl to hear songs from a boy’s perspective it’s like he’s singing just to me.” Of course, it has always been this way on the teen-heartthrob circuit-from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley to the Beatles to the Jackson Five to Leif Garrett to ’NSync to the Jonas Brothers (whom Justin Bieber just may have put out of business). “We first saw him on YouTube,” says Kaye D., a 12-year-old student at a Manhattan private school, “then we became addicted and watched all his videos all the time.” Adds Anya C., one of Kaye’s classmates, “It was because of his talent, and because he’s so cute. But his closest and ever present companions-his 35-year-old mother, Pattie Mallette 29-year-old manager, Scooter Braun and 29-year-old bodyguard, Kenny Hamilton-all look slightly bemused and resigned. ![]() It is a bit scary to watch this five-foot-seven-inch, slim, adorable franchise skateboard his way to the stage. Now, wearing his white-and-purple stage outfit and purple Terry Kennedy Supra shoes, Justin flips around on his skateboard, spins and rotates, and while it’s not exactly Lords of Dogtown, he has some pretty good moves. ![]() ![]() It is possible that he is the highest-paid 16-year-old entertainer in the world, and in just his first year on the scene, estimates of his earnings exceed $100 million. ![]() He has sold nine million albums worldwide, has a best-selling book ( First Step 2 Forever: My Story), won four American Music Awards (including Artist of the Year), performed for President Obama twice, is one of Barbara Walters’s “Ten Most Fascinating People” of 2010, received two Grammy nominations, and this month will star in his own Jon Chudirected 3-D movie, Never Say Never. In the one year since the release of Justin Bieber’s debut album ( My World), he’s become one of the most Googled people on the planet with more than one billion YouTube views, 6.3 million Twitter followers, and 16.5 million friends on Facebook. Out front are 15,000 nearly all female, hysterically obsessed fans (OMG!!!!! Bieber Fever!! Biebermania!! Beliebers!!), already waiting and already screaming. B* oardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, November 19, 2010:* Backstage in the old, freezing, cavernous venue that used to house the Miss America Pageant, Justin Bieber skateboards away from his massive red tour bus toward the door that will lead him to the stage. ![]()
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