Justin Bieber’s Vanity Fair Cover Is Lowest Selling Issue in Over a Decade

Justin Bieber can sell out 3D movie tickets and his own line of OPI nail polishes, but magazine covers? Eh, not so much. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the Biebs' February 2011 cover of Vanity Fair was the publication's lowest selling issue in over a decade!

That’s right. The issue is on pace to be the poorest selling cover in 12 years, moving only 246,000 copies. It might even be one of the mag's worst selling issues since Graydon Carter took over as editor-in-chief in 1992; the Biebs wasn't even born until two years later in 1994, mind you.

Even though Bieber has over 10 million followers on Twitter and is an imposing presence in the social media sphere, that doesn't not translate to magazine selling power. Conversely, someone like Jennifer Aniston, who isn’t even on Twitter, something her ex John Mayer lamented in a Playboy feature a few years ago, is a sure bet who can cause magazines to fly off the shelves in record numbers.

The Biebs' cover featured the teen in a crisp white shirt and black tie, his sweet face dotted with red lipstick kisses. Sure, it was a cute image, but it didn't bring the tweenyboppers out in droves.

Vanity Fair is an intellectual publication that covers the rise and fall of pop stars in the same pages that it chronicles the recent mortgage crisis on Wall Street, the royal wedding, WikiLeaks, the Camelot dynasty and other cultural and historical watersheds. It's a thoroughly adult publication and Bieber's target audience averages around the age of 12, so it's not likely that they were going to pick up a copy of Vanity Fair to read about their hero when the photo to text ratio isn't 12:1. They are a crafty bunch who could easily go online and find snippets of the article.

The Biebs shouldn't be bummed or develop a complex about the cover figures, since it was probably a mistake on the magazine's part to chronicle someone with a tween fanbase. He's also in some A-list company, as other abysmal issues include July 1999, which featured superstar Will Smith, one of the most popular actors in Hollywood. It sold 202,701 copies. The July 1993 issue adorned by actor Harrison Ford also sold in a disappointing fashion, selling only 243,000 copies.

Not to add insult to injury, but Bieber's October 2010 Teen Vogue cover sold poorly, as did his April 2010 PEOPLE cover, which was the magazine's third worst seller of that year.

Don't sweat it, Biebs. We still love you. So do millions of teenage and pre-teen girls.

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