Scooter Braun 'was worried every night' that Justin Bieber would die from drug overdose
Justin Bieber's manager — Scooter Braun — has been with him for as long as fans can remember, but managing isn't the only thing Braun is up to. He is also a close friend of the pop sensation and has now raised his concern about fearing for the singer's life at one point. Speaking about it in an interview, Braun shared, “There was a time when I would go to sleep almost every night — when he had the money to fly away from me — and I was worried every night that I was going to lose him.”
The 37-year-old took to the Tuesday, September 12 episode of The Red Pill podcast to share his concerns regarding Bieber's past with substance abuse. “I thought he was going to die. I thought he was going to sleep one night and that he would have so much crap in his system that he would not wake up the next morning.”
Speaking to host Van Lathan, he also shared how he stepped in to try and infuse some pivotal change in Bieber's life. “He used to yell and scream at me, and he wanted to put music out, he wanted to tour, but I thought if he did that, he would die,” he told host Van Lathan. “So I just refused.”
But at the same time, he believes the 24-year-old 'Sorry' hitmaker is responsible for the major changes in his life. “I think he made a conscious choice for himself to change,” Braun noted. “I think for a year and a half I failed miserably trying to help him because for a year and a half he didn’t change… It wasn’t until one day he woke up and said, ‘Hey, I need to talk to you. I don’t want to be that person anymore.’”
Braun added, “And he used to complain, and he used to fight it, and that’s when he got into a dark place, but when he accepted his responsibility and took a hard look at himself and not what everyone was doing, that’s when he owned it, and he got healthy.”
Bieber's tryst with the law was an overly publicized issue back in 2014; he was arrested on suspicion of driving with an expired license and also resisting arrest. As per reports by the Associated Press, Bieber had shared with the police that he had smoked marijuana, taken a prescription drug (which was revealed to be Xanax) and drank alcohol too.
That wasn't his only brush with the law though as he had also been involved in an egging incident, where he and his friends had vandalized a neighbor's house in Calabasas, California, that very same month. "This led to a misdemeanor charge, and he was ordered to pay $80,900 in restitution and complete probation, anger management, and community service," reports Us Weekly.
But in the years to come, he truly cleaned up his act. Something, he's well aware of as he shared a photo of his mugshot and a current selfie side by side in 2017. He captioned the pictured: “I LOVE THIS because it reminds me IM NOT EXACTLY WHERE I WANT TO BE BUT THANK GOD IM NOT WHERE I USED TO BE!!” he wrote at the time. “THE BEST IS YET TO COME DO YOU BELIEVE IT?” And fans had better believed it, because not only has he staged a musical comeback successfully since then, but he is also engaged to model Hailey Baldwin!