Listen up, Justin Bieber! Mark Wahlberg has been there, done that — and more — and he has some free advice for you. In a live webchat with U.K. newspaper The Sun, the Pain & Gain star jokingly offered up a few nuggets of his own hard-won wisdom for the 19-year-old singer, who's had a recent spate of bad press.
"Justin, are you listening? Don't be so naughty, yeah?" Wahlberg quipped in a faux British accent. "Be a nice boy, pull your trousers up, make your mum proud, yeah? Stop smoking all that weed, you little bastard."
Then, taking a more serious tone, the father of four added: "He's a kid. Let him live his life. I would hope that he would look at it like I wish I looked at it and think, 'You know what, now is the time to be focused and to be disciplined and to be the best that I can be in this career.'"
Wahlberg, 42, speaks from experience, having struggled with substance abuse and criminal charges when he was a teen. Bieber's offenses, by comparison, don't look so bad to the actor. "He's a teenager living in a different day and age…I was in prison before I got a record out, and I don't think he's been to prison, and I don't think he wants to go," Wahlberg told The Sun. "He's a nice enough kid."
That said, fame can be a slippery slope, the former rapper warned. "You're going to be a teenager, but if you're being a teenager in the spotlight, then you're going to be criticized for it," he explained, citing Bieber's young, female fanbase. "This career can be short-lived — you might as well be the best you can while you're doing it."
Wahlberg — who has been in talks to do a movie with Bieber — doled out some similar advice to the star during an interview with Vulture in April. "I think it's best to put down the phone and Twitter and all that stuff, and just be a little more low-key right now," he said. "Because they're watching every move he makes, everything he says, and less is more. Go take a vacation."
