14 DAY TRIAL // Patti Mallette, Justin Bieber’s mother, was on The Today Show the other day to promote her new book, “Nowhere but Up.” Though she rarely spoke about it before, Patti got into the specifics of her troubled life before she gave birth to Justin.
Abused at a very early age (she was only 4), Patti lived such a troubled life that, in her teens, she even tried to commit suicide by throwing herself in front of a truck.
By that time, she was already doing drugs and drinking heavily and, as it happens in most such cases, hanging out with the wrong crowd.
By 14, she was an addict. By 16, she was already wishing she was dead.
Video of her interview on The Today Show is below, embedded at the end of this article.
“I was full of shame. I've learned it's normal for anybody who's been through abuse to carry that shame and blame and feel like there's something wrong with you. I definitely carried that,” Patti explains in the interview.
“[The suicide attempt] was a culmination built up over the years of the abuse and the pain. At the time I was messed up with drugs and alcohol and in a depression,” she adds.
Patti found God at 17 and, after a while of staying sober and clean, she fell off the wagon. Also then, she became pregnant.
Even though she would have never imagined becoming a mom at 18, Patti could not give up the child or have an abortion.
“I just knew I couldn't. I just know I had to keep him. I didn't know how I was going to do it. But I just knew that I couldn't abort. I had to do my best, and I was determined to do whatever it took,” she says.
The day Justin (whom she initially wanted to name Jesse) was born was the happiest of her life.
“I know this sounds crazy, but it sounded like he was singing. He did!” she says of Justin’s first cries.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it is so precious and amazing. I just want to squeeze him’,” she gushes at the recollection.
In the video below, you will also see Justin sing a few lines of a song he wrote specifically for Patti. Enjoy.