“Seeing him disintegrate like this … it’s watching the embodiment of someone not living their purpose. He’s lost. There’s no one protecting him because there’s no one there willing to say no to him. You say no, you get blown out,” one ex-team member told the outlet. On the flip side, some say the problem is that his former managers “protected him too much”: “He never felt the consequence of his actions because we were so worried about the illusion of Justin Bieber being ruined. It wouldn’t have ended his career. He would have felt the sting, though,” another insider observed.
Bieber has cut ties with both the manager who made him a mega star, Scooter Braun, and the friend and business partner who served as best man at his wedding, Ryan Good, and reportedly relies heavily on his pastor, Judah Smith. But while the singer is now trying “to renegotiate his recording contract in order to lessen Braun’s share in his future music,” per THR, Smith has taken on an elevated role in Bieber’s day-to-day operations. “You have a narcissistic pastor egging on a narcissistic artist, both fueled by Jesus, running around trying to do business,” one insider put it.
Smith’s congregation, Churchome, seems to have brought Bieber into the orbit of Tri Star Entertainment’s Lou Taylor, the controversial figure thought to be one of the architects of Britney Spears’ punishing conservatorship. Taylor reportedly helped facilitate the sale of Bieber’s music catalog, but some insiders suggested to THR that even with that windfall, Bieber is “overstretched” in his finances. His reps denied it, stating to the outlet, “Any source that is trying to sell you a story about alleged financial distress … either doesn’t understand the entertainment industry or, more likely, is trying to paint an unflattering portrait of Justin, which bears no resemblance to reality.”
As the story continues to unfold, it’s hard to say whether Bieber is currently dangerously out of his depth or finally liberated to live his own life. Regardless, it’s an interesting insight into a man whose exploits have been public fodder for most of his life, a spotlight with which he has been very open about struggling. Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis, who helped make the deal for the pop star’s catalog, puts a positive spin on the pop star selling his songs. “For Justin, I think that was the motivation: He had ill health and was at a time in his life where he was married and very in love and contemplating family,” he said. “Making the deal gave him the freedom to focus on that and not have to be on the treadmill he’d been on for almost 15 years.” You can read the full piece here.
