Born in 1994 in London, Ontario
Grew up in Stratford, Ontario
📍 The Kid on the Steps of the Avon Theatre, 2007
The same place, five years later
Before Justin Bieber was the most famous pop star on the planet, he was a kid with a guitar on the steps of the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario.
He was born in London, Ontario, on March 1, 1994, to Pattie Mallette and Jeremy Bieber. His parents split up when he was a toddler. Pattie raised him in low-income housing in Stratford, working a series of office jobs to keep things together. It was a small-town childhood in every sense — modest, close to the ground, and shaped by the people around him.
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He showed a feel for music from the age of four. He took drum lessons and taught himself piano, guitar, and trumpet. By the time he was twelve, he was ready to test himself.
In 2007, he entered a local singing competition in Stratford and performed a cover of Ne-Yo’s “So Sick.” He placed second. His mother recorded the performance and uploaded it to YouTube so that friends and family who couldn’t be there could see it. She had no idea what she was starting.
She kept uploading — more covers, more R&B songs, all recorded simply and without production. And then there were the busking videos.
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The steps of the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre became his stage. During the summer tourism season, he’d sit out front with his guitar, singing for passersby — festival-goers, families, tourists who had come to see Shakespeare and found a twelve-year-old singing R&B instead.
He earned $150 to $200 a day. His mother wasn’t sure about a kid sitting on the street by himself, so his grandfather sat in his car across the road, watching. Justin saved the money and took his mom to Disney World.
Someone would occasionally drop a phone number into his guitar case along with the change. His biggest single tip was $100.
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One of those YouTube videos caught the eye of Scooter Braun, a talent manager based in Atlanta. Braun tracked down Pattie’s contact information and called. Justin had never been on an airplane before. His first flight was to Atlanta to meet the man who would change his life.
In a parking lot outside the studio, he ran into Usher. The rest is one of the most extraordinary stories in modern pop music — signed at 13, a global star by 15, and eventually one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with over 150 million records sold worldwide.
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But Stratford hasn’t forgotten the kid on the steps, and the kid hasn’t forgotten Stratford.
On Canada Day 2011, Bieber was honoured with a star outside the Avon Theatre — the very spot where he’d busked four years earlier. In 2012, he returned to Stratford and performed on those steps once more, to the delight of fans and locals who remembered the boy with the guitar.
In 2018, the Stratford Perth Museum opened “Steps to Stardom,” an exhibit celebrating Bieber’s formative years. Curated with help from his grandparents, Diane and Bruce Dale, the exhibit displayed his Grammy Award, microphones, a hockey bag, and personal letters from his childhood. The museum’s general manager put it simply: “The steps of the Avon Theatre was probably the turning point in his life, but for many people around here, they knew he was talented years before that.”
Justin Bieber and his mom’s First Time on TV
Stratford is a town on the Avon River in Perth County in southwestern Ontario.
When the area was first settled by Europeans in 1832, the townsite and the river were named after Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
Stratford is known around the world for its theatre festival — one of the largest and most respected in North America. But for a generation of fans, it’s also the small town where a kid with a guitar sat on the steps of that theatre, sang his heart out for tourist tips, and was heard by the whole world.
