Madison Beer Says Grown Men Called Her “Too Sexy” At 14: “It’s Sickening”

One minute, you're a wide-eyed teenage girl covering "At Last" on YouTube. The next, Justin Bieber shares your video, Scooter Braun signs you, and you're told you're "going to be the female Justin Bieber, give it a year." 

This is exactly what happened to the talented and stunning Madison Beer – but her rise to fame was swiftly met with heartbreak. Her ex-manager, Braun, suddenly dropped her when she was 16. "Literally the same day my manager dropped me, my lawyer dropped me, and my label dropped me," Beer said. "Everything in my life went away within 12 hours."

“You guys just stole years of my childhood that I’ll never get back. And now it’s just ‘good luck’ and ‘have fun’? I can’t go to college because I’ve been homeschooled,” she continued. “I have a high school degree and nothing else because of my career. My whole family uprooted and moved to Los Angeles with no connections. I have no friends. Are you guys kidding me?”

It’s worse than that. Grown men were “having real conversations” about how Beer was "too sexy" to market at 14 years old. “Maybe they shouldn’t have signed a 12-year-old without thinking of the consequences of what that was going to do,” she said.  

"There was a conversation around me when I was 14, I remember people being like, 'She’s too sexy' and 'We can’t sell the sex because she’s so young, so we’d have to wait,'" she recalled. "This was a real conversation, grown men talking about how I was too sexy. I was 14."

"It feels even crazier now because when I have 12-year-old girls come to my meet-and-greets, I’m like, 'You’re a baby. There’s no way that I was a signed artist at your age.' It’s terrifying," Beer added. "No, it’s sickening. The lack of caring about my childhood was so disturbing. I was like, 'Wow, y’all really don’t give a f*ck.'"

The internet was also cruel to the singer. Beer’s first TV performance was met with comments like, “I didn’t know it was possible to get ear cancer.” She told Cosmopolitan, "I don't give a fuck that I'm a public figure or that I put myself out there. You don't treat children like that."

The online mob claimed that she was "talentless," "just pretty," "manufactured." When the press did interviews, they mocked her. "I've been bullied a lot. They sometimes do interviews with me just to make fun of me," Beer said.

If you’re wondering how a 14-year-old survives that, the answer is… she barely did. Beer admitted, "I tried to go the other way and kill myself, and don't get me wrong, I still have those moments."

Regardless of the horrific time she went through, Beer clawed her way back to the top. Maybe not to the sanitized, PR-polished "next Bieber" image the suits envisioned, but to herself. Beer’s new album, whenever it drops, is hers. "I don't need people to love me. And I don't want people to listen to my music if it's not real," she said.

Her relationship with her appearance is fraught. "A lot of my self-worth is based on the way I look. I'm trying to change that, but it's so deep-rooted," she admitted. She's aware of the trap; the pretty face people think is her "ticket," when, in reality, it's been a prison.

“Just because I'm okay with it now doesn't mean I deserved to go through it.”

Today, Beer has built stronger boundaries. She cut meet-and-greets from 200 to 30 people, banned phones, and drew a hard line around her peace. "If you want a robot, make one," she said.

Through it all, she’s still managed to hold onto her authenticity. "I’d rather be real with myself, like, Okay, you went through this, you can't change it. What are we going to do now?"

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