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Months after Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez ended their alleged feud—a rumoured prolonged disdain between the pair brought to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist thanks to “eyebrowgate”— the Rhode Beauty founder has delivered a damning response condemning those who perpetuated that narrative.
The most recent bout of vitriol pitting Bieber and Gomez against one another was perhaps the most volatile we’ve seen in the five years the two beauty founders have found themselves inadvertently vying against one other in the public eye. Now, in the aftermath of the online malice, has delivered an earnest reprimand to those who revelled in the bavardage.
When asked how she tunes outs the death threats and perpetual harassment on Bloomberg’s “The Circuit with Emily Chang”, Bieber responded: “I don’t think that this is about me, Hailey Bieber, and Selena Gomez”.
“This is not about this pitting between two women and division between two women,” Bieber noted. “It’s about the vile, disgusting hatred that can come from completely made-up and twisted and perpetuated narratives. “That can be really dangerous,” she noted.
Ever since Bieber’s marriage to her husband Justin in September 2018, both his and Gomez’s fans have criticised Bieber almost daily, believing (albeit incorrectly) that the Saint Laurent muse “stole” Justin from Gomez and that the skincare savant copied her husband’s ex by founding her own beauty line.
However, after both Gomez and Bieber displayed a united front on social media to address the rumours, the “Who’s In My Bathroom” host offered a sound learning from her experience.
“I think that it’s an opportunity to really stand for bringing people together and not being okay with the kind of division that that caused because I’m not okay with the kind of division that it caused,” she added.
“I don’t like this whole idea of Team This Person and Team This Person. I’m just not about that. I want to be able to bring people together. “I think that was a really important moment for people to see that you can do that you can do that. And you can bring people together and it doesn’t have to be about this divisive nature,” Bieber said of her and Gomez’s public unity.
Bieber also acknowledged that the reported feud stemmed from the notion of female rivalry over a man perpetuated by the patriarchy. “Because of a guy! It’s awful, I hate it!” Bieber said.
“I’ve hated it since the beginning. And I think that kind of goes back to a little bit of just being misunderstood when it’s like time and time again I don’t know why I keep having to say, and we keep having to say, that there is no issue and there is no problem.
“It’s so disappointing that people still behave this way over a man. It’s the world we live in, unfortunately.”
In March 2023, Gomez took to social media to denounce those who bullied or espoused hatred towards Bieber, quelling the online criticism with a truce and an Instagram follow. Bieber returned in kind, writing at the time: “I want to thank Selena for speaking out, as her and I have been discussing the last few weeks how to move past this ongoing narrative between her and I.”
“The last few weeks have been very hard for everyone involved, and millions of people are seeing so much hate around this, which is extremely harmful.
“Things can always be taken out of context or construed differently than they were intended. We all need to be more thoughtful about what we post and what we say, including myself.”
