Leif Garrett to Justin Bieber: Been there, done that, watch out

Leif Garrett, an elder statesman of bubblegum-pop rockers, kinda-sorta had a few words for Justin Bieber in an interview published Monday.

First off: Trust no one.

Well, maybe not exactly that harsh, but pretty close.

“Do not believe your own publicity,” the 51-year-old former teen idol offered, when prompted, while talking to Fox 411. “Sussing out who your real friends are is full-time work. Every scum bag, every drug dealer, every chicken hawk wants a piece of you.”

We’d imagine “don’t get caught with heroin in the subway” would be somewhere in there too, if Garrett were to look further down his own path, but comparing teen idol to teen idol, that’s not quite relevant.

The onetime Tiger Beat pin-up boy then went on to describe how he and Bieber are very different, in ways other than the fact that he had one Top 10 single, “I Was Made for Dancin’,” while Bieber has had oodles of popular singles, a video with nearly 900 million views on YouTube, and a couple of Grammy nominations.

“[O]ur circumstances are quite different. This is something he really wanted to do and he achieved it,” Garrett said. “I was in acting.”

Oops. So much for the head-to-head comparison, which, were it true, might have had us seeing Bieber on Season 38 or 39 of “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.” (Garrett was on Season 4.)

There is one area, however, where the guys have a lot in common.

“When you’ve got that sort of power at that young age,” Garrett said, “and everything at your doorstep, you put out that bad boy image. At that age, testosterone, hormones, all of the money, you see what else you can get away with.”

Pushing the envelope we understand. But if memory serves, Leif Garrett never got caught peeing in a janitor’s bucket.

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