If you’re on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or just don’t live under a rock, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about some drama going on between actress/singer/CEO Selena Gomez and influencer/model Hailey Bieber, formally known as Hailey Baldwin, the daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin.
For some background, Hailey is married to Justin Bieber, but Selena Gomez was in an on-again-off-again relationship with him between 2010 to 2018. Just two months after the Rare Beauty creator and Bieber called it quits, he became engaged to Hailey. Since her relationship with Bieber, Selena has been linked to stars such as The Weeknd, Zedd, and Charlie Puth while Hailey dated Shawn Mendes before settling down with Justin.
There is a lot to unpack when it comes to this timeline of tweets, posts, comments, and even interviews.
But what recently reignited the fuse: eyebrows. In Feb. 2023, the “Lose You To Love Me” singer posted a silly TikTok explaining how she accidentally over-laminated her eyebrows. Only a few hours after she posted, Hailey’s good friend Kylie Jenner posted a photo of her eyebrows on Instagram captioning it “this was an accident ???”
To dig even deeper, Kylie later posted a screenshot of a FaceTime call with Hailey, both sharing their brows for the photo. Fans and spectators flocked to the comments, labeling the pair as “mean girls” and claimed they were acting petty. The speculation drove Selena to take a hiatus from social media, claiming she finds it all “silly” and that she’s “too old for this.” This, of course, was after she claimed the spot as Instagram’s most followed woman—surpassing Kylie Jenner—with around 400 million followers.
Before this incident, Hailey infamously went on the Call Her Daddy Podcast with host Alex Cooper and denied rumors about Justin Bieber cheating on Gomez with her, explaining that she and Selena spoke after the wedding saying, “It’s all respect, it’s all love.” Although she also claimed she never “stole” Justin from Selena, the rumor mill has been running with people posting ideas that she copies a lot of what Selena does. Evidence ranges from when Selena created her makeup line Rare and Hailey seemingly followed with her beauty company Rhode, down to a tattoo they both share of the letter G.
Although Selena and Hailey snapped a photo together at the second annual gala for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the shade throwing continued in Jan. 2023 with a TikTok of Hailey and friends Kendall Jenner and Justine Skye with the sound “And I’m not saying she deserved it, but God’s timing is always right.” The video was posted right after Selena was body shamed by the media over circling vacation photos from her Cabo San Lucas trip. The suspicious videos didn’t end with Selena as the only victim, as a TikTok was posted of Hailey making a gagging face when Selena’s longtime friend Taylor Swift was mentioned.
Almost two months following the eyebrow debacle, the Only Murders in the Building star posted an Instagram story explaining that Hailey Bieber was now receiving death threats online. In the post, she condemned these actions by saying, “I’ve always advocated for kindness and really want this all to stop.”
Just a mere few hours later, the Rhode Skin creator responded to the post with her own story thanking Selena for trying to move past the “ongoing narrative between her and I.” She further went on to state, “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.”
For five years now these two women have been thrown against each other to be enemies. Although some posts were suspicious and gave off “mean girl vibes,” there’s no way to know the real story, which is something we must all remember. They are real people too, both of whom want to move past this topic and get on with their lives.
