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Justin Bieber has a headache...

(Rob Stemple photo, on Flickr)

(Rob Stemple photo, on Flickr)

... and not just the existential one that comes with being Justin Bieber. The teen pop juggernaut opens this scene in New York magazine:

“I have a headache really bad.”“You want some Advil?” asks Jan Smith, his vocal coach, in a seat by the window.“Just had some.”“You took Advil?” She gathers herself up imperiously.“I--I don’t know what I had.”“What did he take?” Jan asks Justin’s mammoth bodyguard, Kenny Hamilton.“Ibuprofen.”Jan looks like she’s been smacked in the face. “Kenny!”Kenny cringes. “What?”“Ibuprofen? Before he sings?”“Uh … it’s not good?”“Nope. It thins out the capillaries. If he pushes them and we get into bleeders? Well. Then we’re gonna have a party.” She turns to Justin. “Let me see your pressure points.”


She begins kneading the fleshy parts of his palms while his mother, Pattie Mallette, leans over from the seat behind them and massages his temples. This isn’t coddling: The livelihood of almost everyone in this very large van, and many other people besides, rests on the narrow shoulders of the 16-year-old with a headache and thinned capillaries. When it occurs to someone that maybe Justin hasn’t had anything to eat today, we swerve up to a Subway restaurant on 58th Street.“Can I go in?” Justin asks.“No!” Jan and Pattie and Kenny and Melissa Victor, his publicist, respond in unison.