As most 18-year-olds are preparing to head off to college, Justin Bieber is raking in $55 million a year, collects seriously fancy cars and just bought his first multimillion dollar home in Calabasas. For all intents and purposes Bieber lives a very adult life, but 18-year-old boys are not known for their maturity. For months the singer has been talking about growing with his fans, creating good music and becoming a “mature” artist, but as GQ recently found out, Bieber behaves just like most kids his age, he’s just not allowed to show it. So when GQ set out to make a man out of Bieber, proposing a number of “insane ideas” that might make for a good profile, his people pre-emptively shot down their prime directive, which was to get the kid good and drunk. No one can dispute that Bieber’s image is carefully controlled. It’s hard to get a sense of who Justin Bieber really is, but he really is all about loyalty. When he overhears one of his business advisers trashing his pal Kim Kardashian, Bieber pipes up. “You guys are so mean, bro. People say she doesn’t do anything; she works hard,” he says defending Kardashian, with whom he tweets and has collaborated on a photo shoot. As peers like Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus or even his longtime girlfriend, Selena Gomez, worry about growing up too quickly-projecting a too-sexy image that could alienate younger fans-it’s Bieber’s natural inclination toward immaturity that could hurt him.
