Still, Justin Bieber tries.

During a recent interview, he talked about setting up time to spend with a friend. Except unlike other kids bumming around town, Justin will be flying out his buddy to spend the weekend in a plush hotel, and will hang with him only after he's done with the myriad of responsibilities that befall the hottest entertainer on the planet.

"I try to spend as much time with my friends and just be a regular kid as I can on top of work," says Justin.

Of course, being a regular kid when you are arguably the most popular commodity in entertainment is a near impossible task. It seems as if the world has been engulfed in Bieber-mania: The YouTube phenom-turned-superstar has graced the cover People, had appearances on "Oprah Winfrey," "Saturday Night Live" and "Ellen," been a guest at the White House and sold more than a million copies of his debut album, "My World 2.0." He poses for photos with Kim Kardashian and starts a frenzy on Twitter. ("Seriously Biebs," she posted, "I'm getting death threats from your fans.") He's friends with the Jonas Brothers and Jaden Smith and counts Usher as his professional mentor.

It's hardly kid stuff. But you won't hear much complaints about it from Justin, who figures he'd "probably work at McDonald's or something" if he wasn't preoccupied with being a global sensation.

"People ask me, 'Do you wish having a regular life?' And I'm like, 'You know, not really.' ... Just regular people, they're like, 'Maybe I want to be famous,'" reasons Justin. "They want to be famous, sometimes I want to be just regular, just hanging out or whatever. There's ups and downs to everything." There haven't been many public downs for the young Canadian since his meteoric rise. He first got noticed with his homemade videos on YouTube, which have collected millions of views. In one, he sang a cover of a Chris Brown song — closing his eyes, moving with the music, his voice clear and strong, with posters of Bart Simpson and Tupac Shakur visible on the wall in the background.