Best of 2013: Justin Bieber's Big, Weird Year in Pictures

The 19-year-old pop superstar may be remembered for some of the more strange, troublesome things he did this year, but let's not forget all the reasons why his fans should not stop Beliebin'

By Natalie Finn Dec 16, 2013 8:00 PMTags
Justin BieberYouTube; Twitter; INFPhoto

It doesn't seem possible that one guy alone could have had the 2013 that Justin Bieber had.

And we're not just talking highs and lows, from the sold-out concerts and upcoming Believe documentary to his not-first-but-seemingly-final breakup with Selena Gomez and the run-ins with the law (in multiple countries).

Let's stop for a moment to think about the fact that the same guy who skulked around London in a gas mask and was...er...immature enough to get into a situation where a girl was able to film him sleeping is also the big-hearted pop superstar who became the first recording artist to grant 200 wishes with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and who stopped to mark the one-year anniversary of a 6-year-old fan's death from cancer.

That the same guy who fancied having a pet monkey, only to realize too late that you need to fill out paperwork if you plan to take the monkey on a world tour, was the same 19-year-old who flew right home to Canada when his dad had surgery.

GQ named him one of the least influential people of the year, and yet he was the sixth-highest earning artist in all of music between June of 2012 and June 2013. He was given the Milestone Award at the sales-driven Billboard Music Awards, and yet the audience booed him.

It just doesn't seem like one kid, who still has two months to go before he leaves his teenage years behind him, could be so this way and yet so that way all at the same time. Bieber sells out the arena, yet gets hit with a bottle onstage. He gets banned from an indoor skydiving facility, but then provides an elementary school with enough food for a year.

We'd ask who this kid really is, but the answer's right there: Justin Bieber is a kid—which is probably why everyone from Will Smith and Mark Walhberg to Christina Aguilera and Olivia Wilde has felt perfectly comfortable offering words of wisdom about how he can better navigate the choppy waters of adolescent stardom.

He obviously hasn't avoided all of the trappings of fame, but the "Baby" singer had the exact kind of year that's going to keep him famous for many more to come—and maybe even, in the end, he'll remain well-known for all the right reasons.

Take a look back at the ups and downs of the wild, wacky, tacky and, at times, downright triumphant year in Bieber right here: