Justin Bieber is getting so much press for his new album, Purpose, which is out November 13. He has a new cover story and interview with i-d Magazine, which took place about three weeks before his nude photos leaked online. The writing style is pretentious and the piece is fawning. I rolled my eyes a few times. The point is repeatedly made that Purpose is Bieber’s first adult album, that he’s transitioning into a new audience and is poised to become a superstar. As unlikely as that sounds to those of us in the cheap seats, it might happen. Bieber worked with a lot of top artists and producers like Skrillex, Diplo, Rick Rubin and Kanye West. Plus you can see how much promotion he’s getting. Ellen dedicated an entire week of her show to Bieber. Bieber may be entitled and self sabotaging but so far this year his issues have been minor. He seems to be self aware enough to reign himself in, but we’ll see.

Here’s some of what Bieber told i-d. The most quotable stuff is about his poor monkey, Mally, who was seized by German authorities in 2013 when Bieber didn’t have the proper papers for her. The capuchin monkey was just 9 weeks old, which was considered too young to be separated from her mother. Bieber decided to leave her at a German zoo instead of following through to retrieve her, which was for the best.

On if Scooter Braun has to manage him
“I don’t take a lot of managing, no. I did when I went through that… phase, for sure. He took the maddest things and put it in ways that made it seem less bad than it was. You know, that’s reality. I was hurting. I was in a pretty bad place… we all make stupid mistakes and decisions.

“I just look at it as a learning experience, for sure… The reality is that people are human and people mess up and people go through trials and tribulations. It made me, myself, be more human to people.”

On how Scooter motivates him
“Scooter is probably one of the smartest people that I have ever met. Very, very, very strategic. Always on. Always thinking of more things to do and more things to accomplish. He keeps me driven, for sure. Because the artist always wants to chill. Like, ‘I made my money. I just want to chill’. But he figures out ways for me to get excited about what I want.”

On his voice changing
“I think it’s more relatable now. When I had that young voice it was hard for people to connect. Dudes can listen to it now and say, ‘Yeah, I like that new Bieber song’.”

On his “transition from boy to man”
“People are really interested because of the transition from boy to man,” he notes. “It was tough because I had to really stick to my guns. I was like, ‘I’m going to fight it. I’m going to fight what you say, even if you guys are going to stop pushing my project. I would rather not be successful than let you steal this from me.’ Finally, I’d pushed for so long and been so consistent — ‘It’s either this way or it’s no way, you let me do this or nothing’ — that they let me do what I wanted to do.”

He’s still gushing about Selena
“I think with that relationship… I put so much of myself on the line with her, because I was so distant with everyone else. So it’s like, you have the world who’s loving you but it’s not like they know my heart — they don’t know me. So when I found that love I was just like, ‘Woah, I want to hold on to this.’ And I just put everything into it and in reality there’s just no holding back. You’re just like, ‘This love feels so good.'”

“It’s like, magical. There’s nothing like it. So I felt that and I just didn’t want to let it go. When it was hard, I was just like, ‘I want to stick this out. So it was on again, off again, on again, off again. We were working out how to be in a relationship, how to be ourselves, who we were, in the middle of having people judge our relationship through the media. I think that really messed my head up too.” For a globally successful teenage brand with sensitivity issues and a habit for Googling himself, it all spelled trouble. “Because then, it’s like trust and all this other stuff that starts messing with your mind. You’re on the road. And there are beautiful women on the road. And you’re just getting yourself into trouble.”

On Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Hailey Baldwin
“They are literally the sweetest girls. They have the best hearts. They care about me in the same way that I care about them. When people say mean things about them, I get defensive and when it happens to me they get defensive.”

On his music collaborators
“I’m super aware of people and I don’t think I would ask someone that I knew wouldn’t want to. I’ve got a good gauge of who I can ask. Usually they do. I completely see that as being God. I couldn’t have asked for a better start to all this stuff, and then the direction that it went in? That was definitely God. Because you never know when you have a hit.”

Kanye helped him with the album and Bieber thinks he’s awesome
“Kanye’s the best. He just talks. For so long. And it’s so dope. Even when it sounds crazy, I know that I’m listening to how he feels because he always puts things into such a different perspective. He makes you wonder. To get that stamp of approval from him made me feel comfortable with the project.”

On his monkey
“The monkey was a present from a friend of mine. It wasn’t a weird thing for me. Obviously people looked at it like, ‘Why does he have a monkey?’ But if you could get a monkey, wouldn’t you want a monkey? Come on! Let’s not look at that as a weird thing, that’s a pretty cool thing to have. It’s a monkey!”

“Once I had the monkey I just wanted to bring it everywhere. I was like, I’m not going anywhere without the monkey. I went to Germany and they were like, you don’t have the right papers. I had brought all the papers that I thought I needed but apparently I didn’t have the right ones so they took my monkey. Really, I can see why Michael would like monkeys. I don’t see anything wrong with having a monkey. I might get another one. The monkey is [now] in a zoo in Germany, so it’s being cared for. And it’s with other monkeys, so it’s happy.”

[From i-d, headers added]

You get the impression that Bieber still has a chip on his shoulder but that he’s willing to put in some of the work, but not all of it, and to see where it takes him. All he has to do now is show up and ride it out, he has a lot of powerful people behind him and it seems his past transgressions have been forgiven. He needs to get out of his own way, though, to keep his ego in check and to keep his life in perspective. That’s going to be a hard balance for him, but at least he seems to recognize that. In yet another cover story interview, with NME, Bieber gets a little self-pitying but he does make some good points. He says that despite all the glamour and trappings of success he still gets lonely. (Which explains why he seems to be begging Selena through the press to get back together with him.) He also really seems to admire and appreciate Kanye West. I would assume that a lot of pot was involved.

Oh and Bieber took a cute photo with Jennifer Aniston.

A photo posted by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Nov 11, 2015 at 4:35pm PST

Hyfr

A photo posted by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Nov 12, 2015 at 12:58pm PST

photo credit: i-d magazine, NME, Justin Bieber/Instagram