Barry Manilow: 'I pray for young stars'

Barry Manilow has admitted that he prays for young celebrities including Justin Bieber.

In an interview on ITV's This Morning, the singer confessed that he had allowed the huge success of his hit track 'Mandy' to turn him into a "jerk".

"When 'Mandy' hit number one everything changed and I became a jerk I think," he said. "When I look back I didn't like who I was and I didn't know how to pull myself back together again, until one evening I looked up and everyone around me I was paying - all my friends had disappeared... so I stopped it and went back to being a real person.

"But it [was] this fame and success thing that knocked me over like a hurricane and I say a little prayer for the people that are younger than I was."

He added: "I hope Justin Bieber has a good family unit because that will help."

The 67-year-old told Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby that the success of 'Mandy' in 1974 had come as a "big surprise".

"I never wanted to be a performer," he said. "I never thought about singing so when this hit it was something out of the blue."