One day after Hailey Bieber’s Call Her Daddy interview came out where Hailey spoke for the first time publicly about whether Justin Bieber ever dated her and his on-off ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez at the same time, Selena made a brief and rare appearance online to thank her fans for their support.
She reminded them in a TikTok live that some fans captured footage of that the words you say about other people matter. Selena did not, in the clips captured and shared online, address Hailey’s interview explicitly. This is the first time Selena has broken her silence since the interview’s release though, adding extra weight to the message.
Selena said at the end of her live: “I think some of the things that I don’t even need to be aware of are just vile and disgusting. And it’s not fair because no one ever should be spoken to in the manner that I’ve seen and all I have to say is it’s incredibly ironic that I would release something that is all about kind words [her makeup line Rare Beauty’s Kind Words Matte lipstick and lip liners, which Gomez did a press tour of Europe to promote] ’cause that’s exactly what I want. That’s it. If you support Rare, I cannot thank you enough, but know that you are also representing what it means and that is words matter. Truly matter. So it’s coming from me, and I just want all of you to know that I hope that you understand that this is much bigger than anything else. I’m really grateful to all of you for hearing me out, so have a wonderful rest of your day, and I appreciate all the love. Thank you.”
In the viral Call Her Daddy interview, Hailey discussed her relationship with Gomez now and suggested that Gomez did not ever publicly defend her from the hate that fans of Justin and Selena leveled at Hailey. Gomez did, in fact, go on Instagram Live and asked her fans not to attack anyone when they were harassing Hailey in October 2019 and has faced harassment from Hailey’s fans too.
Hailey was nervous to talk about the situation but chose to do so anyway to set the record straight definitively.
On their history, Hailey denied any overlap. She and Justin got back together in June 2018, months after Justin and Selena, who dated on-off for 10 years, went on a break turned breakup in March 2018.
Hailey was also on-off with Justin. “I had been involved with him since I was 18,” she said. “The timeline also that sometimes is in question of us getting together then 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, again, how it looks from the outside. 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 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.
“And it’s hard for me to talk about this because I don’t want to talk on either one of their behalf, again, because it was their relationship, and I honestly respect that very deeply. But I just know what was going on when we got back together, and I know what had to happen for that to come back together in a healthy way. And I think it was the most healthy, mature decision that he could’ve made, and I respect that.
“As a woman, I would never want to get into a relationship with someone and be engaged to them and be getting married to them and think in the back of my mind, I wonder if that was really like, closed for you. And I know for a fact that the reason we were able to get back together was because it was very much completely closed. And that is respectful to me.”
As for her relationship with Selena, Hailey revealed the two had spoken one-on-one in private. “Yes, [we have spoken]. Yes [we have spoken after my marriage],” she said. “So that’s why I’m like, it’s all respect, it’s all love. It’s also why I feel like if everybody on our side knows what happened, and we’re good and we could walk away with clarity and respect, then that’s fine. Which had brought me a lot of peace, and I’m like, ‘hey, we know what happened. It is what it is.’ You’re never going to be able to correct every narrative, and there’s going to be new ones that come [from this interview]. It’s never going to end, and that’s why I get to the point where like, that’s why I didn’t speak about a lot of this stuff because I’m like, there will be something new. ”
You can read Hailey’s full comments on the situation here.
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.