Selena Gomez Opens Up About Online Hate Following Justin Bieber Split
Selena Gomez attends Variety's 2022 Hitmakers Brunch at City Market Social House on December 03, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Selena Gomez recently reflected on how online hate surrounding her 2018 breakup with Justin Bieber impacted her mental health. The Only Murders In The Building star told Vanity Fair in a new interview how she got through the tough time.
“I went through a hard time in a breakup, and I didn’t want to see any of the [feedback]—not necessarily about the relationship, but the opinions of me versus [someone] else,” Selena told the publication. “There’d be thousands of really nice comments, but my mind goes straight to the mean one.”
Months after Bieber and Gomez parted ways, the “Peaches” singer proposed to Hailey Bieber. The aftermath of their relationship weighed heavily on Selena, 30. She said she became “inundated with information that I didn’t want” since an early age. “People can call me ugly or stupid and I’m like, ‘Whatever.’ But these people get detailed,” she continued. “They write paragraphs that are so specific and mean. I would constantly be crying, I constantly had anxiety… I couldn’t do it anymore. It was a waste of my time.”
Gomez turned over her social media passwords to her assistant following the split, reclaiming ownership of her Instagram just last month. She has now “created a system” where she can interact with social media on her own terms. “The only thing I have on my phone is TikTok because I find it to be a little less hostile,” she said. “There are wonderful things about social media—connecting with fans, seeing how happy and excited they are and their stories. But usually that’s filtered through [for me now]. Everything I do I send to my assistant who posts them. As far as comments, my team will put together a few things that are encouraging.”
As we previously reported, Hailey addressed the speculation that she had “stolen” Justin from Selena. “Of course, there’s a very long history there and it’s not my relationship,” Hailey said in September. “It has nothing to do with me. So, I respect that a lot. But I know that it closed a chapter.
“I think it was the best thing that could have happened for him to move on and be engaged and get married. And like, move on with, with his life in that way.”
Hailey Bieber Addresses Claims She Stole Justin Bieber From Selena Gomez
In her most intimate interview yet, Hailey Bieber addressed rumors of Selena Gomez’s relationship with Justin Bieber having an overlap with hers and the backlash from those rumors that follow her to this day after being married to him for four years.
The model, 25, said of her critics, “A lot of the hate and the perpetuation comes from like, ‘Oh, you stole [Justin].’ And I guess maybe that just comes from the fact that they wished he had ended up with somebody else. And that’s fine. You can wish that all you want but that’s just not the case.”
She went on to clarify that when she and the “Sorry” singer first started to hook up, “He was not ever in a relationship ever, at any point. It’s not my character to mess with someone’s relationship. I would just never do that. I was raised better than that.”
She added, “I’m not interested in doing that and I never was. I think that there are situations where you can still kind of have back and forth with someone but even that was not the situation. I can say period, point blank I was never with him when he was in a relationship with anybody. That’s the end of it. And I had been involved with him since I was 18.”
She continued, “The timeline also that I think sometimes is in question is of us getting together and getting engaged and him having been spending time with his ex before that…this is so crazy. I’ve literally never talked about this ever… I understand how it looks from the outside and there’s a lot of perception there. But that was a situation where I know for a fact that it was the right thing for them to close that door, they were not in a relationship at that time. But, of course, there’s a very long history there and it’s not my relationship, it has nothing to do with me, so I respect that a lot, but I know that it closed a chapter, and I think it was the best thing that could’ve happened for him to move on and be engaged and get married and move on with his life in that way.”
The couple got engaged in 2018 when Hailey was 21 and Justin was 24. Hailey never thought she would be married that young. “I think the timing was obviously very rapid and very fast, which now, being four years past that, looking back on it, I totally get it. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that seemed really drastic and really crazy.’ But that was what we felt was a decision between the two of us and it felt correct for the two of us at the time and clearly we were right because here we are four years later. And I think just given the timeline of where he was at before we got back together and what was going on… there was just a lot happening.”
She added, “But I will say too, the only people that really know the truth of the situation and what the timeline really was and how it happened and how it went down are like me and him. Perception is a really tricky thing because when you’re watching something from the outside, you can see it one way when it may not really be the reality of what happened behind closed doors.”
At last year’s Met Gala, it looked as though Hailey was crying after hearing the crowd chanting “Selena.” The Rhodes skincare founder said, “Oh, when people were screaming? So, yes, I could hear everyone screaming and I think there’s a certain part of you that has a numbness of just like, I was really surprised. I could kind of hear it, but I didn’t know if that’s what was really going on until I saw the video after. The whole thing of everybody being like, ‘Oh he’s trying to tell her not to cry.’ That was not true, it wasn’t making me cry. Although, it’s a very disrespectful thing to do towards anybody. I felt like I had something in my eye. See, that’s what goes to show you how out of context things can be seen.”
As for how she responds to trolls in her comments, Hailey went on to explain, “You just reach a point where you have to just ignore it and be like, ‘OK.'” Hailey addressed Selena Gomez’s fans directly during the interview saying, “The first thing I would say is you’re not obligated to like me. But I believe that no matter what, there can always be mutual respect between people. And to me, that means just that you don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to like me, but you don’t have to say anything either because behind this person that you’re looking at on a screen is a person with a brain and a heart and emotions and issues that I face and so do you…I think just mutual respect and decency and know that what you say can have impact and know that.”
See what Twitter had to say about Hailey’s interview below:
Laila Abuelhawa is the Top 40 and Hip-Hop pop culture writer for Beasley Media Group. Being with the company for over three years, Laila's fierce and fabulous red-carpet rankings have earned her a feature on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert!' Her favorite stories are those surrounding the latest in celebrity fashion, television and film rankings, and how the world reacts to major celebrity news. With a background in journalism, Laila's stories ensure accuracy and offer background information on stars that you wouldn't have otherwise known. She prides herself in covering stories that inform the public about what is currently happening and what is to come in the ever-changing, ever-evolving media landscape.
