Opinion: The everlasting feud between Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber

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Credit: Elyssa Grillo

WSPN’s Elyssa Grillo discusses the recent controversy between Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez.

Elyssa Grillo

The ongoing drama between Selena Gomez, Hailey Bieber and Justin Bieber made a comeback this February, this time involving Hailey’s friend, Kylie Jenner. With a long history of animosity between the pop-star and model, fans have been quick to make up theories that the girls are still deep in their feud even five years after Justin and Selena’s break-up and his abrupt marriage to Hailey Baldwin.

Justin and Selena are argued to be one of the biggest celebrity couples from the 2010s. Even though their relationship wasn’t very consistent, countless fans adored them. So it was a huge shock when Justin and Hailey announced their engagement just two months after Selena and Justin broke up.

Even though Hailey and Justin had dated once before and were already familiar with each other, it was still bizarre to see how quickly Justin had switched up, leaving people wondering how Justin could’ve gotten over his on-and-off girlfriend of eight years in no time at all.

On social media, fans created rumors about Hailey and Justin’s relationship, because people felt that Justin had been ‘stolen’ from Selena. Pictures of Hailey were dug up from all over the internet to mock her old obsession with ‘Jelena,’ and her celebrity crush on Justin before even knowing him personally.

Many fans have noticed similarities between Hailey and Selena’s life. Hailey seems to copy her husband’s ex-girlfriend in several ways. Selena’s cooking show, “Selena + Chef”, the tattoo behind her ear and makeup line, “Rare Beauty,” are speculated to be inspiration for Hailey’s own Youtube series, “What’s In My Kitchen?,” the tattoo behind her ear and “Rhode,” a beauty brand Hailey released on June 15, 2022.

Is Hailey attempting to one-up her alleged enemy, subconsciously imitating Selena to appease Justin, or is it just honest similarities between the two celebrities?

After Selena and Hailey resolved their drama, it was believed that the celebrity feud might have come to an end in October 2022. But now, something seems to have changed, because fans are still finding new material to pit the two against each other. As recent as February 2023, fans noticed subtle hostility between Hailey and Selena on the social media app, TikTok.

First, in the sequence of subtle digs at Selena was the viral eyebrow scandal on February 22. It began with Selena making a TikTok story about her mistakenly over-laminating her eyebrows. Not even three hours later, Kylie posted two Instagram stories. The first story showed Kylie’s face with the caption, “This was an accident???,” on top of her eyebrows, while the second story featured Hailey in a screenshot from a FaceTime call of the pair showing their eyebrows.

Of course, viewers who saw Kylie’s Instagram story were quick to catch on to Hailey and Kylie’s act. Kylie made a recovery by explaining that she and Hailey didn’t even see Selena’s eyebrow post, and weren’t mocking Selena at all. Selena also confirmed that there were no hard feelings between her and Kylie, however, I don’t find this a coincidence at all based on the similarities between Selena’s and Kylie’s stories.

Either the celebrity best friends were stupid enough to think they could get away with dissing the beloved former Disney Channel star, or they were aware of the attention the Instagram stories would receive when posting, and didn’t care if the attention was negative or positive.

Just that same day, a clip of Hailey on “Drop the Mic,” a rap battle TV show, resurfaced on the internet of her gagging when her co-star, Method Man, mentioned Taylor Swift, Selena’s best friend. Selena commented on the clip, defending Swift. The comment didn’t include any shade towards Hailey, but Selena definitely seemed upset about the rude behavior towards her close friend.

Selena then announced, on February 22, in a video post that she was taking a break from social media for a while, most likely due to the drama created by her, Hailey and Kylie’s fans.

Selena made the right decision stepping away from apps like TikTok that tend to form rumors and scandals out of small things. These rumors can be detrimental to celebrities and influencers who are the targets of these rumors, whether they are true or not.

Selena has been through so much, from being diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune disease, in 2014, to the break-up with Justin and how quickly he fell in love with someone else. On top of all that, she is facing hate on social media from both small internet trolls who’ve body-shamed her and Hailey’s snarky jokes.

Hailey obviously harbors jealous feelings towards Selena because of her own insecurities in her relationship, since the internet is still shipping ‘Jelena’ or claiming that Justin still loves Selena to this day. Nevertheless, it isn’t right for Hailey to take her feelings out on Selena for millions of viewers to observe and create rumors.

As for Justin’s involvement in the tension, he doesn’t seem to feel any regrets about ending up with Hailey. Although he doesn’t come right out and say it, Justin’s 29th birthday celebration this past March 1, included party favors with the message, “I’m so thankful that I didn’t end with what I thought I wanted,” written on a silver object. Fans speculate the message was about many different things, but a reference to his past love with Selena definitely seemed to be the most obvious meaning.

Whether Selena and Hailey still hold grudges over their long-lasting celebrity battle today, or whether everything that happened was just a misunderstanding, this drama should be put to rest. A never-ending dispute over copycats and eyebrows is tiresome and childish, and at the end of the day, Hailey and Selena are the only ones who can put an end to the drama, once and for all.