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Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century: No. 8 — Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber is one of our Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century thanks to him creating a new 21st century path to pop superstardom.

In his personal life, he also confirmed his relationship with another young star, Wizards of Waverly Place actress and pop singer Selena Gomez, when the couple made their red carpet debut at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party that year. He soon began to display increasingly erratic behavior – including wearing a gas mask to dinner, urinating in a nightclub’s cleaning bucket (as well as on a photo of Bill Clinton), spitting on fans, sneaking out of a Brazilian brothel while wearing a sheet, vandalism and, of course, writing that he hoped Anne Frank would have been a “Belieber” in the Anne Frank House guestbook – and Bieber announced in December 2013 via Twitter that he was “officially retiring.” The announcement came just a day after he released his singles collection Journals, which continued to display his artistic maturity by experimenting with downtempo R&B on songs like “All That Matters” and “Confident.” However, the sound was a bit too jarring for his pop-loving fans, and the album flopped commercially compared to his previous works. Over the next two years, Bieber lent his vocals to a handful of successful collaborations, including DJ Khaled’s “I’m the One,” BloodPop’s “Friends” and the inescapable hit of 2017, a remix of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito.” The historic track marked a major step in Latin music breaking into the global mainstream, and spent a whopping 16 weeks atop the Hot 100, then tied for the longest run in the chart’s history.

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