Justin Bieber Got Real About How Fame Affected His Mental Health & Relationships

Justin Bieber just opened up about the struggles of being a child star. In a lengthy Instagram post shared on Sept. 2, Bieber talked about his struggles with skyrocketing to fame at 13 years old, not being required to develop any life skills outside of performing, and how being an entertainer can drive so many people (himself included) to heavy drug use. And reading Justin Bieber's Instagram about fame affecting his mental health and relationships, it's hard not to empathize with the story he's telling.

Bieber started his post off by explaining how hard he finds it to get out of bed under the pressure of his life.

"It's hard to get out of bed in the morning with the right attitude when you are overwhelmed with your life, your past, job, responsibilities, your family, finances, your relationships," he wrote. "When it feels like there's trouble after trouble. You start foreseeing the day through lenses of 'dread' and anticipate another bad day. Sometimes it can even get to the point where you don't even want to live anymore. Where you feel like it's never going to change.. I can fully sympathize with you."

That's when he noted that despite his success, he still felt unfulfilled. And he attributed that to being a child star.

Bieber wrote,

Have u noticed the statistics of child stars and the outcome of their life? There is an insane pressure and responsibility put on a child whose brain, emotions, frontal lobes (decision making) aren’t developed yet. No rationality, defiant, rebellious, things all of us have to go through. But when you add the pressure of stardom, it does something to you that is quite unexplainable.

Bieber then started to open up about what it felt like to have his life go from an ordinary, small-town existence to becoming one of the most famous people in the world in just two years.

“I went from a 13-year-old boy from a small town to being praised left and right by the world, with millions saying how much they loved me and how great I was,” he shared. “You hear these things enough as a young boy and you actually start believing it. Rationality comes with age.”

He continued, “Everyone did everything for me, so I never even learned the fundamentals of responsibility. By this point, I was 18 with no skills in the real world, with millions of dollars and access to whatever I wanted.”

Bieber then talked about how performing on stage in front of large crowds is one of the biggest highs in the world, which is why he believes so many entertainers turn to drug use when they aren't on stage, himself included.

"I started doing pretty heavy drugs at 19 and abused all of my relationships," Bieber revealed. "I became resentful, disrespectful to women, and angry. I became distant to everyone who loved me, and I was hiding behind, a shell of the person that I had become. I felt like I could never turn it around."

Things took a positive turn in the post, however. He said marriage has been a wonderful phase of his life and that it has taught him more things in the years since "bouncing back" from his bad decisions.

"It's taken me years to bounce back from all of these terrible decisions, fix broken relationships, and change relationship habits," he wrote. "Luckily god blessed me with extraordinary people who love me for me."

He said his marriage to Hailey Baldwin has taught him “patience, trust, commitment, kindness, humility and all of the things it looks like to be a good man.”

He concluded the post by saying to his readers that his point of sharing all of this was to express his belief that even if you feel like your life is beyond repair, you can always grow and evolve through it. It takes hard work, but it's possible.