Justin Bieber is working to better himself in 2019 and getting treatment for depression, but he’s still feeling happy about his new marriage with Hailey Baldwin, according to reports.
“Justin seems down and tired. He has been struggling a bit,” a source close to the “Sorry” singer told People. “It has nothing to do with Hailey—he is very happy being married to her. It’s just something else that he struggles with mentally.”
The source added that Bieber “has good help around him and is receiving some treatment. He seems confident he will feel better soon.”
A second source told the publication that Bieber is seeking counseling, while a third noted that the singer is “emotional and struggles a lot with the idea of fame.”
“He started off as a typical sweet, Canadian teen. He was such a great kid, honestly super sweet and very polite and nice to everyone around him,” the third insider told People.
“Having this huge amount of fame completely changed him,” the source added. “He had access to anything and everything and was surrounded by people who just said, ‘Yes.'”
The source said Bieber now struggles with being followed, being stalked by fans, and constantly having cameras in his face.
“It all sets him off and he often feels everyone is out to get him,” said the source.
A big reason why Bieber is now getting consistent, professional mental health care is due to his wife Hailey Baldwin, who pushed him to seek help.
A source told Entertainment Tonight that Baldwin became particularly concerned when she saw his recent change in sleep patterns. “He’s been sleeping far more than usual, and struggles to get out of bed until very late in the morning or early afternoon,” the source said.
Bieber had been struggling with depression for some time before he and Baldwin got back together last June, the source said. While Baldwin has been a good support system for him, she knew she couldn’t give him all the help he needed.
“Hailey knew he needed more,” the source told ET.
Seeing Bieber struggling with depression has also deeply affected his wife.
“It’s very hard for Hailey to watch him suffer with depression,” the source said. “She’s been nothing but a good support system for him but she knows she isn’t a professional, and steady therapy is exactly what he needs. She loves him dearly and hates to see him in pain. She just wants him to be at his healthiest, so she pushed him to get steady help and he hasn’t resisted.”
A source previously told ET that Bieber felt he “needed an emotional tuneup” and was seeking help with the support of his wife, family, and friends. Bieber was open about his issues in a recent Vogue interview with his new wife, where he spoke about how becoming so famous at such a young age deeply affected his mental health.
“I started really feeling myself too much. ‘People love me,'” he said. “That’s honestly what I thought. I got very arrogant and cocky. I was wearing sunglasses inside,” he told the publication, while Baldwin emphasized, “At night inside.”
Aside from suffering from depression, Bieber confessed to also “having a legitimate problem with sex” and self-medicating with Xanax.
“I found myself doing things that I was so ashamed of, being super-promiscuous and stuff, and I think I used Xanax because I was so ashamed,” he said.
“My mom always said to treat women with respect. For me that was always in my head while I was doing it, so I could never enjoy it. Drugs put a screen between me and what I was doing. It got pretty dark. I think there were times when my security was coming in late at night to check my pulse and see if I was still breathing.”
Since then, Bieber has been trying to become a better person, which included more than one year of self-imposed celibacy prior to getting married.