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"FacebookPinterest\n\nA year ago, GQ helped usher Justin Bieber into manhood with a major profile on the occasion of his 18th birthday. He was on top of the world then. Now? Let's just say adult life hasn't been so kind to JB yet. The author of that GQ profile reflects on the pop star he met, and what's different now.                \n\n\"Justin was born a badass.\"\n\nThat was Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber's manager, talking to me on the phone when I was writing this profile of the teen idol that appeared in GQ a year ago. Since we ran that piece, Bieber has had a year that can be safely described as anything but badass. His girlfriend, Selena Gomez, dumped him. He was caught on camera threatening a photographer. He fainted backstage in London. He had the worst 19th birthday ever. His album, Believe, sold well but didn't get him the kind of critical adulation and ascension-to-Timberlake-status that he and his people were clearly gunning for. His tour bus just got raided. Oh, and he ruined the guestbook at the Anne Frank House. If you thought Bieber was a spoiled little shit, he's done a great deal this year to prove you correct. There is every indication that Bieber, like many child stars, is beginning to turn down a darker path, something that he and his people tried to convince GQ could not and would not happen.\n\nBieber is a lab rat. As Braun himself told me, \"No one's ever been as famous as him as a solo artist this young... ever,\" and I couldn't think of a single example to prove him wrong. I asked my friend, the college football blogger and noted cultural historian Spencer Hall, to think of an example and he came up empty as well. \"The last person to deal with this much fame this early,\" he said, \"was emperor Puyi.\" In an age when fame has already ruined so many young talents, here is someone being subjected to the MOST fame... the absolute extreme end of privilege and wealth and adoration. He has 38 million INSANE people on Twitter who will threaten to knife your tires if you speak ill of him. And so it would be foolish of anyone to assume that Bieber has some kind of superpower that could negate the effects something like that would have on the human mind.\n\nThe funny thing is, I think Braun\u2014who clearly loves Bieber\u2014really believed Justin was special enough to overcome all that. \"He wants desperately to be normal,\" Braun told me, \"But I told him, 'Justin, you are not normal, you are extraordinary'... There is more depth and wisdom in that kid than in most adults.\" I didn't really believe any of that when I talked to Braun, but I did believe that Braun believed it, if that makes sense. Bieber rarely hangs out with people his age. Many of his friends are much older than him, and even though their affection for him seems genuine, they are convinced that he IS special and that he can handle anything.\n\nThis year, that notion has been exposed as complete bullshit. Instead of believing that Bieber could handle anything, his people should have stepped back for a moment said, \"Wait, he's just a kid. We have to dial this back a bit.\" But they haven't. They've pressed on with an acoustic album and tour dates and more of everything, because it's hard to resist when the kid is generating millions of dollars. Braun may love Bieber, but it takes rare fortitude to stop the money train and send the kid off on a NOLS trip. The people who are closest to him also depend upon him\u2014a reversal of the usual child/parental figure dynamic\u2014and so everything gets warped. And as Bieber presses on conducting the lucrative business of being Justin Bieber, it will get more and more warped.\n\nWhen I spent a night hanging around Bieber last spring, it was clear immediately that he's the kind of kid who loves showing you things. He loved showing off his car. He loved showing off the gold chain that Usher gave him. He loved showing off his clothes. And he loved showing off his music. Oh, how he loved showing off his music. He loved bringing people into the studio, cranking it up, and watching everyone nod in approval. Hell, even the songs are about showing off shit...\n\n\n\nYou don't need to be a psychiatrist to know that people like to show off their stuff when there's little else to them. There isn't much to indicate that Bieber will one day develop a true personality, one where he doesn't feel compelled to show people all his shiny new crap all the time. It's not an encouraging sign that he went to Anne Frank's house and thought that SHE would admire HIM, not the other way around. Braun tried to convince me that Bieber was at once normal and otherworldly. He was born a badass and yet he's, \"about as normal as it comes.\" He's the most famous and wealthy young artist ever and yet, \"He's more aware of real life and the harshness of it than most adults.\" You can't have it both ways. At nineteen, you can either be normal, or you can be famous. You can't be both, no matter how hard you try to make it happen. And if Bieber and his team keep trying, I can guarantee you that he'll have an even worse birthday when he turns twenty.\n\nDrew Magary is a GQ correspondent and a staff writer for Deadspin. Follow him on Twitter via @drewmagary and pre-order his new book about fatherhood, Someone Could Get Hurt, at his website"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/justin-bieber-at-19-post-gq-profile>