Justin Bieber has risen to the top of the pop music game with eight number-one hits and over 150 million records sold. Along the way, he scored 22 Grammy nominations and walked away with two. Even though he started out as a teeny bopper sensation with his YouTube videos, Justin is now a 27-year-old bona fide global icon. And much of that is due to the upbringing he received from his loving parents, Jeremy Bieber and Pattie Mallette.
Although Justin and his mother are close now, they had a bit of a falling out when he was running into trouble as a rising pop star. Shortly after his DUI in 2014, Justin said he and Pattie’s relationship was “non-existent.” during an interview with Billboard. “I was distant because I was ashamed. I never wanted my mom to be disappointed in me and I knew she was. We spent some time not talking, so it takes time to rebuild that trust. She’s an amazing woman and I love her.”
Now the mother/son duo are as tight as ever! Keep reading to find out all about the woman Justin calls “amazing,” below!
Pattie struggled with drugs as a teen and contemplated suicide.
Justin’s mom was born in Ontario on April 2, 1975. Pattie’s father left the home when she was only three and her life was a roller coaster of hardships afterwards. “When I became a teen I started experimenting with drugs, alcohol [and crime] to numb the pain…I was pretty much high or drunk from the time I woke up, to the time I went to bed,” she said on the Canadian Christian talk show, 100 Huntley Street, in 2008. “I left home when I was 15. I lived a life of sin, drugs, alcohol and stealing.”
The downward spiral came to a horrifying end. “I tried to kill myself by standing in front of a truck,” Pattie added. “I wound up in the mental ward for trying to commit suicide.”
She gave birth to Justin when she was 18.
Pattie was a single teen when she welcomed her superstar child into the world on March 1, 1994. Although Pattie was living a clean life off drugs and alcohol, she still had a difficult time financially. “As a single mother [I sometimes said], ‘I have no idea how I’m going to feed Justin,’” she explained on the 100 Huntley Street, talk show.
Pattie had plans to be on The Bachelorette.
At one point, Pattie had ambitions to be the next single lady to hand out roses on the ABC hit reality dating program The Bachelorette. While watching the show’s finale almost a decade ago, Pattie got all romantic and teary eyed watching Sean Lowe propose, and it got her thinking! “Who will be the next Bachelorette? Me perhaps?? Hmmmmm…” tweeted Pattie.
She revealed a painful childhood secret in her memoir.
In her 2012 memoir Nowhere But Up, Pattie revealed she had been sexually molested as a child and teenager by multiple people. Some of the abusers were known to be family friends or relatives. Pattie described the constant abuse as something so frequent that “it began to feel normal.” It wasn’t just men who abused her, as she also recounts a “girl from school” who was “trying to teach [her] about pleasure.”
Pattie had a tight bond with Selena Gomez.
Justin’s mom definitely approved of his on-again, off-again girlfriend Selena Gomez. “Pattie and Selena have always been tight. Pattie adores her and sees her as her own daughter. She’s always been there for Selena through her roller coaster relationship with Justin,” an insider told HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY back when the pair were an item. They insider added, “She approves of Selena and has been advising her to stay true to herself. Pattie and Selena pray together and this has really bonded them together over the years.”
Of course, she is just as supportive now with Justin’s wife Hailey Baldwin. Pattie recently wished the model a happy birthday while letting the world know how much she adores her new daughter-in-law. She took to Twitter and gushed “HAPPY BIRTHDAY @haileybaldwin !! I LOVE YOU!! I’m SO #THANKFUL to have you as a daughter!!!”