Following the release of Justin Bieber’s new album, “Changes”, the 26-year-old singer sat down for an extensive and wide-ranging conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.
During the 43-minute chat, the pop star opened up about his marriage to Hailey Baldwin, unresolved issues, his new music, and also the story of the story of meeting Billie Eilish.
Things got emotional quickly when the interviewer asked Bieber about Eilish, who has been a super fan since childhood. “I don’t know how many opportunities I’m going to get,” he was quoted as saying. “We never know how many opportunities we’re going to get with anybody. I’m tearing up thinking about it, just with the Kobe situation, you know.”
When asked if he feels protective over the 18-year-old, Bieber replied, “Yeah, I definitely feel protective of her. It was hard for me being that young, and being in the industry, and not knowing where to turn, and everyone telling me they love me, and just turn their back on you in a second.”
He continued, “It’s hard because I want her to know that she can count on me, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to… I’m never going to force myself to be in relationship with her. It has to be natural, right? I just kind of let her do her thing.”
Bieber then added, “If she ever needs me, I’m going to be here for her. Just protecting those moments because people take for granted, encounters. I just want to protect her. I don’t want her to lose it. I don’t want her to go through anything I went through. I don’t wish that upon anybody. If she ever needs me, I’m just a call away.”
Eilish seemed touched by Bieber’s candid answer. The Grammy winner posted a clip along with some throwback photos (showing how big of a fan she has been) on her Instagram. She captioned the post, “stream changes”.
Other highlights during Bieber’s interview include:
- On making music again: “I think, again, I was dealing with a lot of fear, a lot of just… was afraid of, at that point, just even the process. What am I going to talk about again? Is it going to be received? I’m starting to compare with other artists. I think when I went on stage with Ariana Grande, I seen the reaction of how people reacted when I went on the stage. It was like, “Okay.” He gave me kind of a boost of confidence and reminded me because it’d been so long since I’d been on stage. Just kind of reminded me what… Oh, this is what I do. This is what I’m good at. And I don’t need to run away from it. I was… I was running away. I think a lot of us need to take that when something’s hard. It’s almost like we need to run towards the pain and run towards the hurt rather than run away from it. I think you get kind of healing when it comes to that.”
- Growing up in front of the public eye: “I definitely have grown up in front of the world for sure. But there’s nothing… I mean, just even thinking now, what we’re doing right now is we are building, we’re building a relationship. What you and I are doing right now, we’re building trust, we’re building- what you and I are doing right now, we’re building trust. We’re building… This isn’t just… I mean, people will see this and look at it as an interview, but what we’re doing is we’re just two men sitting down, talking about life and the human condition.”
- On being reckless with his relationship with Selena Gomez: “I was just hurt from my previous relationship. I think I still was dealing with a lot of unforgiveness and all that sort of stuff. To be honest, I don’t think I even knew what I was really struggling with at the time. I don’t think I knew I was dealing with unforgiveness. I was just in a place where I knew I didn’t want to tell her one thing and… I felt like she respected me at the time and I had a lot of respect for her, and so I just didn’t want to say something and then she’d see me off doing some other thing.”
- When things ended: “But either way she loved me and seeing me with other people hurt her. And so with that being said, she went out and did things that hurt me. And so just this hurt, I’ve hurt her, she hurt me. And then before tour we just really stopped talking, I was really upset. And rather than, before that in my previous relationship I went off and just went crazy and went wild, just was being reckless. This time I took the time to really build myself and focus on me, and try to make the right decisions and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, I got better.”
- Marriage with Hailey Baldwin: “I’m freaking married now. I got the best wife in the world. She supports me through so much. I’m really honoured to be her husband… There’s more to come. I mean, I want to continue to write about what it looks like to be… This is an album I wrote in the first year of our marriage, so it’s so fresh. There’s so much more to learn about commitment, and building trust, and foundation. I’m looking forward to continuing to build and make music that’s going to reflect that.I think I’m excited about this, but I’m just like, there’s so much more. There’s so much deeper levels I’m excited to go to, which is fun. It gives me something to look forward to. I think in the past, I was so caught up in all of the bad things in my life that I wasn’t able to really take a second and really appreciate all the little things. Yes, I’m excited. It’s going to be good.”
Watch the full interview here:
Catch up on previous interview on Apple Music here.
