Justin Bieber turns 30 years old tomorrow…. 30! How did it fly by like this? I still remember the first time I ever saw him in person, it was MuchMusic Video Awards weekend, I was in the ETALK office space that afternoon getting ready for the event and doing some work with our producers. He rounded a corner in the opposite direction of where I was heading and when our eyes met, he gave the chin up, cocky fresh and full of vim.
Now he’s 30?! In your mind, do you see Justin Bieber as a 30-year-old man?!
You know that whole thing about fame and arrested development and how a person can be stuck at the age they became famous no matter how old they are? It doesn’t just stunt the celebrity, it can also stunt the audience in some cases. And I feel like this is true of JB – that the public through his 20s has persisted in seeing him as a teenager even though he is so far beyond adolescence.
Part of the reason, for sure, could be because of his appearance, he still looks so youthful. But it’s not just about his hair and his skin and the way he dresses, it’s also the power of celebrity and image on the observer, those who consume pop culture and how these people and their stories and their experiences lodge themselves permanently in our minds. I call it memory eyes – and Leonardo DiCaprio is a great example of this. Leo does not look anymore like he did in Titanic, but since we all saw that movie, over an over again, his Titanic face is deeply etched into cultural memory. Similarly, with Justin Bieber, since he became so famous as a teenager, one of the most famous people on the planet, JB as a teen punk is etched into cultural memory. So many people still think of him as a kid…
When he is, in fact, a man about to enter his 30s, and has been married for over six years which is longer than a LOT of Hollywood marriages and probably longer than a lot of people thought this marriage would last. Which brings us to the latest round of speculation about the Biebers. The last time there were rumours flying around Justin and Hailey it was just before the Super Bowl, because she posted this on Instagram and the terribly unskilled gossips on TikTok read into the caption and interpreted the last slide on the carousel to mean that she wanted to divorce her husband, JFC. A week later the Biebers were cuddled up at the Super Bowl and for Valentine’s Day.
Yesterday however, her father reposted this video from Victor Marx, the founder of All Things Possible Ministries.
I mean to me, and I’m an old ass bitch, all I’m reading from this is that this man is saying that celebrities take a lot of sh-t, often subjected to cruel treatment, especially in these social media times – so he’s asking his followers to pray for their well-being. And Stephen, as Hailey’s father, would share in that sentiment.
But social media immediately popped off with speculation that something’s wrong with the marriage, and then the Biebers went to church yesterday and didn’t put on a happy face for the paps so now people are even more convinced that something is up.
Maybe Victor Marx was asking for prayers though because of what he actually wrote in his post:
“There are special challenges that folks in high visibility positions face …”
Have you ever cruised through the comments on Hailey’s Instagram posts? They are heinous. Every single one of her posts has comments from people who say “but I thought you were a man”. The first post under the one I linked to earlier that started all the speculation pre-Super Bowl reads “how and why did Justin marry this thing”.
If we’re looking for a reason why this couple would be upset, I mean, it’s RIGHT THERE. So it’s actually incredible that they’ve managed to stay together this long given the f-cking hell that people throw at them, on top of the regular crazy sh-t that comes with fame, and their respective health issues. And their age, the fact that they’ve been together through such a formative period in their lives.
Is everyone OK with Justin and Hailey? I don’t know, nobody knows but also… how could it be OK when every day you know that there are thousands if not millions of people out there rooting for you to not be OK?! Let's Squawk about it. (app link here)
