My wife first brought this post to my attention yesterday, knowing that I'd interviewed Justin several times, starting very early in his career. This post from this past weekend on Instagram is a surprising piece of self-reflection and honesty from a kid who has not always had the best reputation.
As I mentioned, when I first met Justin, he was a precocious, energized 14 year old who had just gotten signed to a record label. He was at the fair doing an interview and was really just known as the kid from YouTube who could sing Usher songs. But as he talks about in this post, he got very famous, and very rich...VERY FAST. That's not a good combination and would be hard for anyone to handle, let alone a 14 year old teenager from a small, poor town in Canada.
I have a HUGE new found respect for Justin for posting this very honest, personal reflection on where he's been and where he's going.
Photo: Getty