Two of the most circulated names in American pop culture, or rather soft news media outlets targeting teen girls, are Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber. Both women are well-known within their respective fields; Bieber – a model, media personality as well as founder of the cosmetics company ‘Rhode Skin’. Gomez – a chart-topping music mogul, renowned actress, businesswoman, and so forth. But what both women have in common is being/having been romantically involved with one of the biggest music acts in the world, Justin Bieber.

Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber started dating in the early 2010s when he was arguably at the ultimate height of his career. She was just exiting her Disney days and he was the world’s new teen heartthrob and the world (that being teenage America.. mostly) couldn’t get enough. Their relationship was on and off for several years before officially ending in 2018. Bieber then went on to marry Hailey Baldwin Bieber that year. 

With much fame comes large fanbases of support. ‘Fans’ an acronym for devoted supporters of celebrities often express their admiration for their favourite stars in many ways, creating fan pages, fan fiction, fan art. Or more extremes – finding their favourite celebrity’s home addresses and stalking them, but I digress. With all of this, fans tend to cling to the past of their favourite stars, specifically their dating lives and with both having been with ‘The Biebs’ it was almost inevitable.

There has been much speculation over the years as to an official reason why Selena and Justin broke up. I mean, in the eyes of the public what could be a more perfect match; both are young, attractive, can sing, act and have that candy-like charm gossip columns love. Moreover, the couple were probably a part of many people’s formative years which is why to this day all fanbases involved will go to great lengths of driving up conspiracies to justify their parasocial obsession with the notorious love triangle. Such as Hailey being Justin’s refuge from Selena or Hailey purposefully breaking up ‘Jelena’ or even Selena being obsessed with their marriage in hopes of rekindling her relationship with Justin. It’s tiresome at this point.

One thing to take note of is how in most narratives a woman is being demonised with Justin being exempt from it all. Recently, after years of these tired stories by the fan bases and internet trolls, both Selena and Hailey Bieber broke the internet after posing together for photographs inside the Academy Museum Gala. The photos went viral showing them in a warm embrace. According to Entertainment Tonight the two aim to be “cordial and remain friendly”.

Ultimately, were the two ever in a feud? This we will never know for sure. But it seems for certain the constant public scrutiny they both received, specifically Hailey for marrying Bieber (now four years ago) has led to them both stating publicly on many occasions that they wish to end the hate and trolling from fans. The rumours could have previously fed into resentment in real life at some point, or maybe not, but it would inevitably make things rocky between both of them over the years. Selena, now 30, and Hailey 25, have now finally put the noise to rest with big camera smiles, politely signalling the fandoms to move on once and for all.

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