Justin Bieber's mom, Pattie Mallette, lays bare her painful past and turns to God in new book
Published September 24, 2012
NEW YORK – Pattie Mallette was 18, living in a home for pregnant girls after years of unrelenting sex abuse and depression when she gave birth to a boy she thought she'd name Jesse, a boy whose first cry sounded like a song.
Well, the baby seemed more like a Justin after he popped out. And his last name isn't Mallette.
It's Bieber.
You'd have to be firmly under a rock not to know at least a little bit about Justin Bieber's YouTube-to-riches story, his loyal fan base of Beliebers, 28 million Twitter followers or the hordes of screaming girls who pack his tours.
What you probably don't know are his mother's struggles, starting with the painful divorce of her parents, through years of emotional turmoil and hard partying that made school a blur, and her eventual turn to God after a suicide attempt about six months before Justin was conceived.
Mallette, 37, has laid bare her past in a new book, "Nowhere but Up: The story of Justin Bieber's Mom," out recently from the inspirational publisher Revell. It's a powerful, plainspoken story, written in collaboration with A.J. Gregory, a mother herself. A portion of proceeds have been promised to shelters like the one that harbored Mallette in Canada when her mother kicked her out of the house after she got pregnant.
Her troubles began well before that, however, and Mallette has forgotten little.
"Writing the book was part of my healing process," she said in an interview. "Just having to relive things as I'm writing it down. There are parts that are still painful to go over."
She was 2 when she watched her alcoholic, abusive father walk out the door and about 3 when she was first sexually abused by someone she knew. Mallette doesn't identify her numerous molesters, including a male baby sitter and the grandfather of a friend, but the last words of her book's acknowledgments speak volumes. "To my abusers: I forgive you."
"I was sexually violated so many times that as the years went by it began to feel normal," wrote the petite Mallette. "It's a strange marriage — knowing something is wrong yet at the same time finding it familiar and commonplace."
Fear, shame and the notion that she was an unlovable, "dirty girl" stretched through her life. She said the "void of having a father in my heart" led her down rough paths, including drinking and drugging to oblivion, beginning at age 14.
There was pot smoking and LSD. She left home at 16. To support herself and pay for her destructive habits, she turned to petty crime and pot dealing — and the toxic, on-again-off-again, four-year relationship she had with Justin's father, Jeremy Bieber, that began when she was 15. At 17, she threw herself in front of a truck and landed in a mental ward.
It was there that she was led to a Christian life, though her faith faltered soon after and she fell back in with her old friends. Sex with Jeremy left her pregnant. She resisted intense pressure from those around her to have an abortion: "I knew that I had to do what it took. I just couldn't abort him."
There was no returning home and she went on government assistance after Justin was born. She worked part-time jobs for diapers and rent, wondering how to proceed without a high school diploma, wondering how she could go back to school with no one to care for Justin.
With the help of a neighbor who paid for a year's worth of daycare, Mallette slowly earned her degree, followed by college training in website design on scholarship.
Meanwhile, her son's perfect rhythm on the drums, his guitar playing and singing talent, surfaced early, along with a hyperactive nature and love of soccer and hockey.
He earned extra cash as a busker on guitar and a djembe drum he had received as a gift. Singing on the streets for money is something Mallette said she never forced him to do but earned them thousands of dollars after the first time he tried for fun at age 6.
Success snowballed when Justin was 12 on the strength of YouTube videos Mallette posted for faraway relatives that were quickly discovered by young people and exploded with millions of views. Along came Scooter Braun, a persistent manager who launched Justin's career at barely 13, fresh out of junior high.
He's 18 now, his mother's age when she had him. Mallette said he's pushing for his independence, moving alone into a house he bought in Calabasas, California. Mom wasn't invited to join him but lives nearby.
"He doesn't want me in his space so much but he's doing really well for himself," said Mallette, who once traveled with him everywhere.
Justin has a fancy sports car that was a gift from Braun and earned him a speeding ticket in July as he was chased by paparazzi. He also has a girlfriend, Selena Gomez, whom Mallette adores.
"She's just a sweetheart. She's kind and generous and loving," said mom, who's often called just that by fans on Twitter.
Mallette first told Justin about her past when he was about 12, after she began sharing at small-group meetings.
"I felt like he was old enough, mature enough to hear my story, and, you know, talk about it," Mallette said. "I feel like it's really important for us to talk, and I've always asked him a lot of questions and always tried to protect him from going through the same sort of thing."
At 21, Mallette made a choice to abstain from sex outside of marriage. Still never married and holding strong, she IS ready let go of another promise, this one to Justin when they first moved to the states that she wouldn't date until he was 18.
"It's time to start dating," she smiled.
Will Justin have a say over suitors?
"I think he's going to be a tough one to please," Mallette said. "He's pretty protective, but yeah, definitely, he would have to approve."
Well, the baby seemed more like a Justin after he popped out. And his last name isn't Mallette.
It's Bieber.
You'd have to be firmly under a rock not to know at least a little bit about Justin Bieber's YouTube-to-riches story, his loyal fan base of Beliebers, 28 million Twitter followers or the hordes of screaming girls who pack his tours.
What you probably don't know are his mother's struggles, starting with the painful divorce of her parents, through years of emotional turmoil and hard partying that made school a blur, and her eventual turn to God after a suicide attempt about six months before Justin was conceived.
Mallette, 37, has laid bare her past in a new book, "Nowhere but Up: The story of Justin Bieber's Mom," out recently from the inspirational publisher Revell. It's a powerful, plainspoken story, written in collaboration with A.J. Gregory, a mother herself. A portion of proceeds have been promised to shelters like the one that harbored Mallette in Canada when her mother kicked her out of the house after she got pregnant.
Her troubles began well before that, however, and Mallette has forgotten little.
"Writing the book was part of my healing process," she said in an interview. "Just having to relive things as I'm writing it down. There are parts that are still painful to go over."
She was 2 when she watched her alcoholic, abusive father walk out the door and about 3 when she was first sexually abused by someone she knew. Mallette doesn't identify her numerous molesters, including a male baby sitter and the grandfather of a friend, but the last words of her book's acknowledgments speak volumes. "To my abusers: I forgive you."
"I was sexually violated so many times that as the years went by it began to feel normal," wrote the petite Mallette. "It's a strange marriage — knowing something is wrong yet at the same time finding it familiar and commonplace."
Fear, shame and the notion that she was an unlovable, "dirty girl" stretched through her life. She said the "void of having a father in my heart" led her down rough paths, including drinking and drugging to oblivion, beginning at age 14.
There was pot smoking and LSD. She left home at 16. To support herself and pay for her destructive habits, she turned to petty crime and pot dealing — and the toxic, on-again-off-again, four-year relationship she had with Justin's father, Jeremy Bieber, that began when she was 15. At 17, she threw herself in front of a truck and landed in a mental ward.
It was there that she was led to a Christian life, though her faith faltered soon after and she fell back in with her old friends. Sex with Jeremy left her pregnant. She resisted intense pressure from those around her to have an abortion: "I knew that I had to do what it took. I just couldn't abort him."
There was no returning home and she went on government assistance after Justin was born. She worked part-time jobs for diapers and rent, wondering how to proceed without a high school diploma, wondering how she could go back to school with no one to care for Justin.
With the help of a neighbor who paid for a year's worth of daycare, Mallette slowly earned her degree, followed by college training in website design on scholarship.
Meanwhile, her son's perfect rhythm on the drums, his guitar playing and singing talent, surfaced early, along with a hyperactive nature and love of soccer and hockey.
He earned extra cash as a busker on guitar and a djembe drum he had received as a gift. Singing on the streets for money is something Mallette said she never forced him to do but earned them thousands of dollars after the first time he tried for fun at age 6.
Success snowballed when Justin was 12 on the strength of YouTube videos Mallette posted for faraway relatives that were quickly discovered by young people and exploded with millions of views. Along came Scooter Braun, a persistent manager who launched Justin's career at barely 13, fresh out of junior high.
He's 18 now, his mother's age when she had him. Mallette said he's pushing for his independence, moving alone into a house he bought in Calabasas, California. Mom wasn't invited to join him but lives nearby.
"He doesn't want me in his space so much but he's doing really well for himself," said Mallette, who once traveled with him everywhere.
Justin has a fancy sports car that was a gift from Braun and earned him a speeding ticket in July as he was chased by paparazzi. He also has a girlfriend, Selena Gomez, whom Mallette adores.
"She's just a sweetheart. She's kind and generous and loving," said mom, who's often called just that by fans on Twitter.
Mallette first told Justin about her past when he was about 12, after she began sharing at small-group meetings.
"I felt like he was old enough, mature enough to hear my story, and, you know, talk about it," Mallette said. "I feel like it's really important for us to talk, and I've always asked him a lot of questions and always tried to protect him from going through the same sort of thing."
At 21, Mallette made a choice to abstain from sex outside of marriage. Still never married and holding strong, she IS ready let go of another promise, this one to Justin when they first moved to the states that she wouldn't date until he was 18.
"It's time to start dating," she smiled.
Will Justin have a say over suitors?
"I think he's going to be a tough one to please," Mallette said. "He's pretty protective, but yeah, definitely, he would have to approve."
Pattie Mallette's name may not ring a bell, but her new memoir, Nowhere But Up, includes a foreword with an instantly recognizable byline.
"My mom is the strongest woman I've ever met," writes Justin Bieber, Mallette's son. "I've always known it, but this book has helped to remind me just how strong she is."
Lest we doubt his objectivity, Nowhere But Up -- helpfully subtitled The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom -- details Mallette's struggles and sacrifices, from a youth marked by sexual and drug abuse and feelings of abandonment to teen pregnancy and single motherhood.
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"I've spent most of my adult life sifting through the tangled web of emotional wounds and the debris left by the darkness in my childhood," Mallette writes in Chapter One. We learn of the tragedy that devastated Mallette's family months before she was born; of the trail of molesters who made her believe she was "just a dirty girl," from a male babysitter to a friend's grandfather.
Nowhere But Up also chronicles Mallette's tumultuous relationship with Bieber's father, and the spiritual awakening she had when she was visited by a Christian counselor in a psychiatric ward, after a suicide attempt. (The book was co-written by A.J. Gregory, whose own titles include Messy Faith: Daring To Live By Grace and Silent Savior: Daring to Believe He's Still There.)
"I always wanted to write a book about my story," Mallette, 36, says in an interview. "I wanted to be as vulnerable as I could, so that young girls who have been through similar things could relate. I pretty much bared my soul. It definitely furthered my healing process."
Mallette uses that last term repeatedly inconversation. She calls Nowhere But Up part of her "healing journey," in which "faith has played a huge role. I'm really grateful to God and to all the people who have surrounded me and loved me."
She took others' sensitivities into account while writing Nowhere But Up, she says. "In sharing difficult moments, I wanted to find that fine line between truth and honor. I didn't want to blame anybody or shame anybody; we're all imperfect and we all make mistakes."
The book is at its sunniest when the focus is on Mallette's famous son, whom she describes as having been a precocious, energetic little boy whose musical gifts were rivaled only by his love of and affinity for sports.
Asked if she was wary of letting Bieber pursue a career in show business, given her own experience with unsavory characters who preyed on her guilelessness, Mallette says: "Absolutely. You hear all the horror stories about kids and teenagers in this industry, and I didn't want to throw my son to the wolves. I've done my best to protect him and surround him with good people."
Mallette allows that she can't watch Bieber's every move as closely as she used to. "He's 18 now and wants to be independent. But I still travel with him when I can. It's a bit of a whirlwind, but we've always been pretty flexible and spontaneous about it."
She adds that Bieber -- who just released a new book, Just Getting Started -- a follow-up to 2010's First Step 2 Forever: My Story -- has been a consistent cheerleader for her new project:
"He's really supportive, and really proud of me."
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