The David Black-photographed cover shows the 21-year-old pop star
struggling to remove shackles underwater. He wears a white dress shirt
(unbuttoned) and black trousers, and his locks flow away from his face.The image depicts the “What Do You Mean?” singer’s life for the past
few years — struggling to keep his head above water during his
transition from teen pop star to independent adult. But though he appears to be drowning in the
negative media onslaught, really, he’s about to pull a Houdini and make his improbable escape.
In the accompanying interview, the Biebs talks about everything from Jesus to Taco Bell and, of course, Selena Gomez.
“We
were so in love,” the singer tells the magazine about his on-again,
off-again relationship with Gomez. “Nothing else mattered. We were all
about each other. But when it’s like that and you get your value from
that, people will always disappoint you. Your girl or your dude, they’re
always going to disappoint you. Your full identity can’t be in that
person. My identity was in her. Her identity was in me.”
When
asked what he learned from his relationship with the 23-year-old, he
says, “Don’t fall in love. No, I’m just kidding. I learned a lot. I
moved in with my girlfriend when I was 18. Started my own life with her.
It was a marriage kind of thing. Living with a girl, it was just too
much at that age.”
He adds, “When stuff would happen, I would lose
my freakin’ mind, and she would lose her mind, and we would fight so
hard because we were so invested in each other. Love is a choice. Love
is not a feeling. People have made it seem in movies that it’s this
fairy tale.”
Head to Complex to see the full interview and spread.
