After picking up four trophies at the American Music Awards, Justin Bieber was back in Canada on Monday night, playing a sold-out show at Montreal's Centre Bell. The 16-year-old hasn't been back in his native country much since his latest tour kicked off this summer. And, according to Bieber's manager, that constant traveling is hard on his family.
"I think his dad misses him a lot because he doesn't get to see Justin as much," Scooter Braun told The Hollywood Reporter of his client, who was recently announced as one of Barbara Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People of 2010." "I think his mother — she and I have talked about this — at times, she struggles with how protective we have to be of him."
At the same time, though, Bieber's mom is thankful that she can be protective of him while they're on the road. "[S]he feels safer with him living this life because it's structured, and we know where he is all the time," Braun said. "She feels that if they were still in Stratford, Ontario, he'd be getting himself into a lot of trouble."
Instead, the Biebs is in the midst of a 90-show international tour that weaves through North America before jumping over to the U.K. next year. And he has no plans to slow down anytime soon. Pop-culture history is littered with epic flameouts, artists who rose to fame and quickly disappeared. But Bieber is so committed to avoiding such a fate, Braun said, he researches folks who fall into the "Where are they now?" category.
"Justin doesn't study the people who made it," Braun said. "He studies the people who haven't. He hears all the naysayers about how he's going to disappear, so he likes to look up people who used to be the so-called Justin Biebers before him and didn't go anywhere. He wants to see why they didn't go anywhere. The general feeling we get is that it had nothing to do with their talent and everything to do with their personal life. Like the kids fall into drugs and destroy their own trajectory."