Justin Bieber's mother reveals all

It is a scene that will do little to endear Justin Bieber’s mother to her superstar son: Bieber, as a child, sitting on the naughty step. Now 18 and with a £40 million (Dh238 million) fortune, Bieber may be the world’s richest teenager but when he was an impish toddler, his mother, Pattie Mallette, resorted to a technique later made popular by TV Supernanny Jo Frost, sending her naughty son for a “time-out” to punish him.

“When he was little, he was really mischievous, a little prankster,” Mallette, 36, said in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday. “Women I knew who had lots of children told me that just watching Justin wore them out.

“I wanted to be the best mum I could be so I read a million parenting books and watched lots of television shows on being a good parent. I would make Justin sit on a step for a time-out.”

But Mallette’s attempts at keeping her son on the straight and narrow clearly haven’t dampened his natural exuberance. She has been seen chasing him as he heads through airports on his skateboard, and charging after him through the lobbies of five-star hotels. She has even resorted to confiscating his video games and mobile phone.

Earlier this month, during a visit to London, Justin and One Direction star Niall Horan held a late-night jamming session at Horan’s apartment, upsetting the neighbours. And last month in a magazine interview, Bieber joked about Prince William and his thinning hair.

Pattie is no mollycoddler but her determination to keep a close eye on her son is rooted in her own tough childhood, during which she experienced drink, drugs and sexual abuse. “Perhaps I have been a little over-protective, but with good reason,” she says. “I had a really rough childhood. For me, it was important to set boundaries.”

The agony of her early life is revealed in a new memoir titled Nowhere But Up, in which she paints a searingly honest picture of the volatile childhood she had growing up in working-class Stratford, Ontario, where her parents toiled on the assembly line of a car plant.

From her earliest memories, she appears to have been taken advantage of by the adults around her and she later resorted to any anaesthetic on hand, including alcohol, drugs and loveless sex.

At the age of four, Mallette was molested by a male babysitter, and sexually abused by a friend’s grandfather. The horrific attacks turned her into a teenage rebel who went shoplifting while fuelled by drugs and alcohol.

“I started hanging out with the wrong group of girls,” she says. “Stealing was our cheap thrill. There’s no way around it, I was a troublemaker. As I became more delinquent, my conscience grew weaker.”

At 14, she drank and smoked marijuana. At 16, she left home and moved in with three men.

“By the time I was 16, I couldn’t function at all without numbing myself in some way,” Mallette says. “The joints I smoked were laced with angel dust or cocaine. I also took LSD.’

By 17, she was having an on-off relationship with martial arts enthusiast Jeremy Bieber, a notorious troublemaker known for belligerence and heavy drinking. Her life became so unbearable that she tried to commit suicide by hurling herself in front of a truck. “I was full of shame,” Mallette admits.

After treatment at a mental health ward, she joined an evangelical church. “I didn’t want to spend nights and weekends getting blitzed out of my mind or cruising for guys,” she says.

A few months later she became pregnant with Justin. Jeremy was the father. “A baby in my life situation? It was a nightmare come true,” admits Mallette.

Her mother warned her that she would be “mainly on her own” if she decided to keep the baby and Mallette was advised to have an abortion.

“But I couldn’t,” she says. “It sounds cheesy but I believe Justin was created to bring joy.”

She moved into a Salvation Army hostel and Justin was born on March 1, 1994. Pattie still remembers his first cries. “It sounded like he was singing,” she says, laughing.

Jeremy was in no position to provide for the child — Mallette says on the day she went into labour, he was in custody at the county jail after getting into a fight.

Mallette ended their relationship but encouraged Jeremy to visit his son — when he wasn’t locked up. “Whatever differences we had, we were intentional about not putting our son in the middle of disputes,” she says.

Jeremy gave Justin some of his first guitar lessons and these days the pair are close.

Justin spent his early childhood in a tiny rented flat where his mother had to put out traps to catch the mice. She took a string of low-paid jobs and says: “I survived single motherhood by sheer willpower and a ton of prayer. Justin says he never realised we were poor because I just didn’t let him know. He had curfews, a set bedtime, and we sat down and had meals together. I went to food banks and relied on the kindness of strangers for help.’

Often she relied on cheap ready-meals: “I made a lot of macaroni and cheese.” However, Justin was a happy child and showed unusual ability at music and sports. Pattie recalls: ‘He would clap to a beat and by the age of two he could play a full drum kit. People started to ask for his autograph when he was six. They would say teasingly, ‘You’re going to go somewhere’.”

“He would sign ‘Justin Bieber number six’ because that was his football shirt number.”

Justin was discovered purely by chance. By the age of 12 he would go busking in Toronto and Pattie posted clips of his performances on YouTube for relatives to see. They were also spotted by Scott ‘Scooter’ Braun, a promoter and music industry executive, who arranged a recording contract.

In 2008, the pair moved to Atlanta, where Braun installed them in a three-storey townhouse and paid for furniture and food.

As Justin’s reputation and fan base grew, Pattie continued to be a strict parent. Until recently, she vetted his entourage and was in charge of his spending money. Justin has revealed: “I have a credit card which allows me to spend only a certain amount every month. If I reach the limit after the first week, I can’t buy any more stuff until the month is over. My mum is in control of that.”

Now, at 18 and becoming more independent, Justin clearly appreciates his mother’s guidance. In a foreword to her book, he writes: “My mum is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. I’ve always known it, but this book has helped to remind me just how strong she is. She has such a big heart.”

Mallette’s regime of devotion and tough love has helped Justin adjust to his changed fortunes. She has worked hard to instil in her son strong moral values. She says: “I didn’t want him to go through the pain I’d gone through. Children don’t just need discipline and boundaries, they actually want those things. It creates in them a sense of security and love.”