LIZ JONES: When I met the teenage Justin Bieber, he did something that truly shocked me. Here’s why I now fear this strange and pampered star is heading for disaster… [Video]

08:25 EDT 17 Mar 2025, updated 08:30 EDT 17 Mar 2025

The year was 2010 and I’d been sent to Orlando, Florida by the Mail to interview teen sensation of the moment, Justin Bieber. He was then just 16 years old, but already had a string of hits to his name and an army of young female fans, known as ‘Beliebers’.

He had been discovered aged 13 after posting videos of himself on YouTube singing Justin Timberlake’s Cry me a River in his bedroom. The son of a single teenage mother, Pattie, he grew up in a low-income family in Canada. His voice, his talent, was their ticket out of the poverty trap.

But in the years that followed, Bieber became bigger than anyone could have anticipated – and found himself confined in a gilded cage.

I met him before he embarked on a gruelling, all-singing and dancing performance that night at Orlando’s giant Amway Arena. I watched …