Long before the stadium lights and platinum records, Pattie Mallette was a broken girl in Stratford, Ontario, trying to survive what no child should endure. Molested at three, raped at fifteen, numbed by drugs and alcohol, she spiraled so far she tried to end her life and woke up in a psychiatric ward. There, a pastor stepped into the wreckage and became the first adult to see her as more than damaged. His steady presence and her halting, messy turn toward faith didn’t erase the past, but they gave her a reason to keep breathing.
When she discovered she was pregnant at seventeen, people urged her to “fix” her mistake. Instead, she chose Justin. That decision forced her to grow up fast, to believe that something holy could come from horror. For years she hid her story from him, terrified it would stain his childhood. When she finally told him at twelve, he broke down in tears—not in shame, but in compassion. That moment rewrote their bond: not pop star and manager-mom, but survivor and son, carrying the weight of a shared redemption.
