Justin Bieber admits needing ‘serious’ healing before marriage: ‘I had trauma and scars’
In a Sunday podcast about marriage and relationships, Justin Bieber admitted his past is filled with “trauma and scars,” and the only way he could enter into a “healthy” marriage relationship with his wife, Hailey, was by experiencing “serious” healing.
Justin and Hailey Bieber were featured on a recent episode of the “In Good Faith” podcast hosted by Pastor Judah Smith and his wife, Chelsea, of Churchome in Kirkland, Washington.
The discussion was titled “Why Marriage?”
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“I had a lot of trauma and scars, so I just committed to working on those things, getting healthy. And Hailey just accepted me as I was,” Justin Bieber recalled before getting married in September 2018.
“And when we got married, there was still a lot of damage and hurt that I still needed to work through, but she had seen my heart through it all. And I could cry thinking about it, to be honest. I just came to a point when I was like: ‘There’s no other thing that I want more.’”
Hailey Bieber stated that she knows that her husband had to grow by undergoing a healing process, but the journey remains partly a mystery to her. However, she is glad he “endured” and that they are in a place where they are “united” in their marriage.
“There was a lot of that work that I didn’t even know was going on because I wasn’t a part of it. And I’m totally fine with that,” she said. “It’s just that I’m grateful that you decided to do the work.”
The Biebers have known each other since they were teens after Hailey Baldwin was introduced to the pop star by her celebrity father, Stephen, in 2009. The supermodel told Elle Magazine in a 2020 interview that the two dated when she was 19 and he was in his early 20s. The relationship didn’t last at the time because their lives were “going in very different directions.” They later reconnected at a church conference in Miami a few years later.
In June 2018, the two became a couple again. By July of that year, they were engaged. And by September 2018, they were married.
“So obviously it was really quick,” recalled Hailey Bieber of the progression towards marriage.
“But, I think everyone who knows the story knows we didn’t just meet. And I feel like that was something I was trying to fight against in the beginning, when I was trying to explain it to people. I literally have known this man since he was a boy.”
Justin Bieber said he recalls nights in the past where he would spend his time journaling his prayers to God about meeting his future wife.
“I was talking about Hailey, not knowing that it was her that I was going to marry, just praying for my wife, just praying that God would just protect her. And just as I knew that I was preparing myself for her, that He would be preparing my wife for me,” Justin Bieber recounted.
“I also think the idea of what marriage means and the significance and the seriousness of that and just making that commitment is really a step of faith,” he added.
The Biebers said that in addition to providing marriage counseling, the Smiths have served as mentors during some more difficult seasons of their marriage.
Both couples said they have such a close friendship relationship that they see each other as family.
“They are both two of my favorite people. … Family is a bigger priority for us because of you two,” said Judah Smith to the Biebers during the podcast. “All their fans and admirers around the world are saying, ‘Woah, it must be something really special and a big deal to have a family and to love each other and take care of each other and listen and laugh and make memories and watch shows.’ And so, family is a bigger priority for us because of you two.”
“We walked through this journey of their relationship with them for many years,” Chelsea Smith added. “Listening to them talk about the then and the now, their teen selves and the incredible relationship that they’ve arrived at now, the painful journey that they’ve endured and stepped out into [is] really incredible to hear about in their own words.”
For Judah Smith, attending the Bieber wedding was a life-changing experience because their union served as an example.
“What meant a lot for me is how Justin was thinking about marriage as scared. Marriage is a really special thing to us four,” Judah Smith said. “We think it’s super sacred, and I can see that in Justin. You were like, ‘this is not a game. I’m about to profess publicly to the people who matter most to me that this is the woman I choose.’”
“Bro, I saw it in your eyes, and I got so nervous. It was a lifetime commitment for both of you,” Judah Smith continued. “But, I think that has impacted Chelsea and I personally in such a deep, profound level.”
Bieber shared in a 2019 interview with Vogue that the couple abstained from sex until their wedding night. He said that before his marriage and reconnecting with God, he found himself addicted to Xanax and having “a legitimate problem with sex.”
For a time, the Biebers struggled in the marriage because Justin Bieber was facing an unknown mental health challenge where he said he did not know what was happening in his brain.
“I was having these out-of-body experiences,” he said. He recalled having issues with “weird sensory stuff,” such as his arms and hands feeling in a “weird way.”
Justin Bieber said he is grateful that his wife did not give up on him when he was facing the challenges. Now, he said he is in a much better place.
“I healed things. Us showing up for each other every day, just being consistent, me seeing that she wasn’t going anywhere,” Bieber said. “I think I had a lot of rejection issues that I had to just fight through. But, [she] just continuously showed up every day, being there for me. I just kept seeing that over and over, and I just became more secure with where we were at in our relationship.”
“It was the hardest thing in my life at the time. But I knew for a fact that I had loved this person for a very long time, and now would not be the time to give up on him,” Hailey Bieber detailed. “I couldn’t do that to him. Imagine abandoning someone in the middle of the worst time of their life potentially. I’m just not that type of a person. I was going to stick it out no matter what the outcome was going to be.”
