The Complete & Complicated Back Story of The Biebers, Selena Gomez & The Kardashians
Get a bucket and a mop because this one is messy
Since starting a pop culture platform, there is not a thing people have asked me my opinion on more than the absolute shitstorm that is the love triangle between Justin Bieber, Hailey Baldwin and Selena Gomez. While I’ve written about this before, I haven’t presented you all with the full scope of the story, which is a highly convoluted tale. I guarantee you that no matter how many articles you’ve read or TikToks you’ve watched, you probably haven’t seen all the facts laid out in the manner you’re about to behold. You’re welcome in advance.
Recently, the love triangle once again dominated the headlines after Eyebrowgate when Kylie Jenner seemed to shade Selena’s DIY brow lamination job on her Instagram stories. Since then, the internet as labeled Hailey a ‘mean girl’ and ‘fan' of Selena, digging up lots of the old dirt on the relationship, but I’ve failed to see any creators lay it all out on the table.
The Back Story to the Back Story
Puppy Love: The Early Days of Jelena (2009-2012)
Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber were introduced in early 2009 when Justin’s manager Scooter Braun (the devil) called Selena’s momager and asked to arrange a meeting. Justin had recently revealed that Selena was his celebrity crush on a radio interview with DJ Snake.
On New Year’s Eve that year, Justin serenaded Selena with his song “One Less Lonely Girl” on Dick Clark’s “New Year’s Rockin Eve,” sparking romance rumors, but Selena who was 17 at the time, saw 15-year-old Justin like a kid at first, even telling MTV News that she saw him more like a “little brother.” Ouch.
The pair are first spotted on a real date on December 8, 2010, and later spend New Year’s Eve together in St. Lucia on a romantic vacation. Finally, they confirm their romance in February 2011, now newly-17 and 18, with their red carpet debut at the Vanity Fair Oscars party.
Trouble In Paradise (2012-2013)
Selena and Justin announce their first breakup in November 2012 after months of public speculation and the couple’s denial. A source close to Selena told PEOPLE, "With them being apart so much it got complicated. She had some trust issues. It's not easy, but the relationship needed to end." At the time, Justin was on his BELIEVE Tour and being managed by Scooter Braun and Corey Booker, the young man was being put to werk.
Enter the KarJenners (2014)
As mentioned, Corey Booker, Kris Jenner’s partner was working as Justin’s tour manager at the time, thus Justin naturally became friends with Kendall and Kylie. During this time, it was also speculated that Kris was potentially looking to manage Selena, as she had recently fired her mom.
Both Justin and Selena began spending time with Kendall and Kylie in the Spring of 2014. Selena even attended Coachella with the Jenner sisters in April, where Bieber performed. Selena and Justin were spotted throughout the weekend looking cozy together, but things went sideways after the festival.
Fans were quick to notice that Selena had unfollowed Kendall and Kylie on April 22 and several tabloids ran stories indicating that it was due to her finding incriminating messages between Kylie and Justin.
Less than a week later, Selena is spotted hanging out with Orlando Bloom at a Chelsea Handler show, seemingly her first date since all of this began, and thus begins Justin’s personal parade of models.
The Storm Continues (2014)
The very next day after Selena is spotted with Orlando Bloom, Kendall Jenner brings Hailey Baldwin along for a dinner with Justin. A few weeks later on May 4, 2014, he posts on Instagram from a boxing match in Vegas with Yovanna Ventura and Kylie Jenner. In August, he was spotted in Ibiza with Kendall Jenner.
On August 27, Bieber shocks the world by seemingly confirming that he and Selena are back together with an Instagram post of the two. Then, in a deposition soon after, he again affirms that the pair are “boyfriend and girlfriend.” This would prove to be very short-lived.
By September 30, Selena and Justin were spotted traveling from a vacation to Paris Fashion Week, appearing to be in a heated argument. Later that night, Justin is spotted once again with, you guessed it! — Kendall Jenner drinking champagne in Paris.
Selena heads out immediately following the Louis Vuitton show, seen in the airport in the same shirt she wore to the event. The next day, Selena unfollows Justin, but seems to make up with Kendall, as she and Cara Deleveigne sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Kendall in this video on November 4.
Then a week later, Justin unfollows Selena back after a coffee date with Kendall.
Hailey Takes Center Stage (2014-2015)
While Hailey had been introduced to Bieber before, as mentioned, she hadn’t quite made it into his inner circle until this point. It’s important to note that Hailey was a hardcore Belieber before she ever met her future husband, socially. In fact, she’d met him several times before as a fan. Her father, Stephen Baldwin had arranged for her to meet him a few times prior, dating back to when she was only 13. Her social media from her younger years show that she was a big fan of the Jelena relationship. How sweet!
The first time Hailey and Justin spend time together alone, without a Jenner in the mix is November 7, 2014, when they left a birthday party together. They begin spending more time together — going to church together, attending each other’s birthday celebrations, etc. But when dating rumors start to fly, both parties adamantly deny them. Hailey states that she’s “just trying to be there for Justin” and Justin claims that Hailey is “just his friend.” On December 13, Selena has a public meltdown at Taylor Swift’s birthday party, seemingly over these rumors.
The not-couple spends New Year’s Eve together, while Selena joins Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner in Dubai. Seems calculated — no? From this point on, Hailey and Justin are seemingly linked, but unofficially. Justin continues to be spotted with models, including when Hailey is around.
On March 1, 2015 Yovanna Ventura (Vegas Fight Girl) attended his birthday party, which Hailey also attended, and posted a photo with Justin holding her leg, him shirtless. Other models he was seen with during this several-year period include Ashley Moore, Nicola Peltz (who is now married to Brooklyn Beckham) and Jayde Pierce.
Coachella goes about as well for Justin and Hailey as it did for Justin and Selena, as Hailey is photographed crying and other festival goers overhear Kendall screaming at Bieber, calling him a “douchebag.”
The “Sorry” Media Tour vs. Behind the Scenes (2015)
It’s no coincidence that the song ‘Sorry’ (my guiltiest pleasure, btw) was released in 2015, the very year that Justin began to parade his sorry little ass around bringing up Selena in every possible interview.
In May, Jelena was caught hanging out at a Met Gala after-party, spotted on a Hillsong Church member’s Snapchat story together, but then days later, he goes on a date with Hailey and posts on Instagram with her. Then, on August 30, Justin breaks down in tears on stage at the VMAs while performing songs that he had previously confirmed were about Selena.
Repeatedly, Justin is spotted on dates with Hailey one day and another model the next, while giving new interviews about his relationship with Selena all the while.
The Kourtney Era
In October 2015, he was spotted with none other than Kourtney Kardashian. At the time, he was 21 and she was 36. They attended a celebrity hot spot called The Nice Guy and a haunted theme park afterward. Later in December, US Weekly ran a story claiming they’ve been “hooking up” for awhile and that he brags about it to his friends. They publicly went on some more dates that year, and more outlets reported about the fling.
Oh but wait, in the middle of all this, in November, Jelena was spotted at a hotel bar, where Justin was serenading Selena with songs like ‘My Girl’ and ‘Sorry.’
And Back to Hailey (2016)
Despite this fling between Kourt and the Biebs taking place between October and December (publicly, at least), Justin elects to take Hailey on a family vacation around Christmastime only a couple of weeks after Kourtney and JB are last spotted together and a month or so after that hotel bar weirdness.
In an interview, Selena finally says that “[w]hat I would love to be printed, is that I am so beyond done talking about that, and him.” *Round of applause*
After the family trip and spending New Years together, Hailey and Justin appear to be a couple, but once again, they refuse to put labels on it. Hailey tells Entertainment Tonight that she “loves” him but also tells E! that they are “not an exclusive couple” because “he’s about to go on tour.”
The Purpose Tour (2016-2017)
The Purpose Tour begins in March 2016. When Bieber performs for three back-to-back nights at the Staples Center in L.A., Hailey attends the first show backstage, and Selena attends the last — DIABOLICAL!!!!! In addition, Kendall, Kourtney, Kim and Kanye all attend and watch backstage as well.
Justin had big plans to rent out the Staples Center to screen Titanic to recreate their first date and thus sweep her off her feet once again but ended up canceling due to a suspected argument between them. My guess was that she found out his other girlfriend was there two nights prior.
Justin begins to see more models on his tour and starts to date Sofia Richie for a brief period as she travels with him across the world. That lasts for about five weeks or so, nothing major. But the day after they break up, Justin takes Hailey to Paris.
He picks things back up with Kourtney Kardashian as the pair are spotted a couple more times before she allegedly “calls off” the fling, he’s spotted on a hike with Madison Beer, and Selena shows signs of moving on. After her brief rehab stint, she begins seeing Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd.
Selena dated The Weekend for 10 months starting in the summer of 2017. During this period, Justin dated more models and waded deeper into the Hillsong Church. He canceled his tour in late July as his relationship with his pastor Carl Lentz grew more and more codependent.
The Back Story
The fall of 2017 is when things start to come together as we know them now, but there’s still a lot that happens first.
Randomly, on October 24, 2017, Justin is seen arriving at Selena’s house. At this point, she’s still with Abel/The Weeknd. The next day, they meet for breakfast. Then, they attend church together and go to breakfast together again. After church, they’re later photographed in a very rough neighborhood, allegedly buying drugs. This is one of those weird things that is largely ignored by most media outlets and quite unexplained (because celebrities never buy their own drugs).
After this repetitive hanging out, Selena and Abel break up and it’s speculated that Justin and Selena got back together at this point. They’re spotted on a bike ride, she attends his hockey games, they go to church together a ton. Selena’s own family spoke out against the relationship, her mother went on record saying their family would never accept Justin, calling him a “vile human being.” #TeamMandy
Meanwhile, Hailey begins dating Shawn Mendes.
The Church’s Influence (2018)
After Jelena reunited, Selena mentioned in an interview that the pair was in couple’s counseling to work through issues they’d experienced in their previous attempts at making a relationship work. From the outside, things seem to be going well as there haven’t been more public fights. In fact, there had been more PDA — making out at concerts, cuddly date nights, etc. That is, until around February 2018 when rumors started to swirl that Justin was pressuring Selena into marriage, which tracks with Carl Lentz’s background of a “militant approach to purity culture.
Shortly after these rumors surfaced, Selena and Justin appeared to take a break: she deleted her ‘happy birthday’ post on Instagram, they went to church separately, and she did not attend his birthday party.
Three weeks later, Justin is spotted with another model, appearing to confirm the breakup.
After this breakup, Selena makes it clear to several publications that she is done, for real this time and looking forward to moving on. Bieber goes on to rendesvous with several models, before meeting up with Hailey in Miami in June.
The trip to Miami seems to be where Justin and Hailey solidified their bond. They leave and return to New York together, where they’re spotted kissing around the city. On June 29, 2018 sources confirm the pair are dating. On July 1, Justin proposes in the Bahamas when Hailey is 21 and Justin is 22. They exchanged vows at the courthouse two months later, then held an extravagant second wedding in South Carolina in September 2019.
Bringing it back to the church…
Once going public with the engagement, the couple seemed to campaign on the fact that they were celibate. Later on, they would even come to admit that this was a big factor in why they chose to marry so young.
Present Day
Social Media Scraps
After the wedding, we thought the drama was over, but we thought wrong. The Jenners, Hailey and Selena have all continued to trade jabs on social media over the years, even in the year of our lord 2023.
Most recently, we saw Eyebrowgate take place via Instagram stories, but the first time Hailey threw shade at Selena on social media dates all the way back to 2015. Starting out subtle, she liked (at the time, “favorited”) a Tweet that said “Selena Gomez: RT for Hot, FAV for Not.” As time went on, she grew more bold. When Selena and The Weeknd started dating, she made sure to let us know she was Team Bella, tweeting, “Wait sorry, WHO could possibly be cuter than @bellahadid ….. literally nobody.”
Hailey and Justin also have a habit of mimicking Selena’s best friend Taylor Swift. After Taylor posted a silly video of her acting drugged up after lasik eye surgery, Hailey and Justin posted a video mimicking the phrases Taylor said in the video. This might explain why Selena felt compelled to comment on that viral TikTok of Hailey making a gagging gesture at the mention of Taylor’s name. It’s no secret that Taylor has long been a JB hater and honestly, can you blame her? My friends still hate my most harmless ex boyfriend.
The Bieber Marriage
Since saying “I do,” the Bieber marriage has been anything but blissful. There are countless uncomfortable interactions caught on camera and I can only imagine how much more tense things are behind closed doors. Over the last five years, there have been several videos of Justin blatantly ignoring Hailey in public or screaming in her face, slamming doors on her, escaping paparazzi and leaving her behind. Fans have also noted the impatience with which he speaks to her on their Instagram Lives.
The couple admitted to struggling in the beginning of their marriage — entering into marriage counseling within six months, but say things have gotten “easier” now. Justin’s health issues have also added to their relationship stresses.
While there are thousands of red flags surrounding this relationship, the Biebers do appear to be committed to “doing the work” to make their relationship function. However, during Eyebrowgate, Justin’s silence on the matter was hard to ignore.
While the internet and even the crowd at Rolling Loud piled onto his wife, Justin contributed zilch to the conversation, until he finally posted from their Turks & Caicos trip saying only “LOVE U BABY” in the caption.
So, who’s the villain?
I want you to think back to when you were a preteen, maybe 13 or 14 and think of which star you loved at the time. Now imagine you actually get the chance to date that person. But they aren’t that interested in you. They like you fine, but they’re kind of occupied. How would you act? What would you do? Do you think you’d play it cool? I don’t think so!
Calling Hailey Bieber a mean girl is short sighted. Frankly, to me she seems pathetic. She’s beautiful, loaded, and in many ways the luckiest girl on the planet and YET she sacrificed it all for Justin. Bieber. Hailey BALDWIN has kissed her youth goodbye all for a mediocre white man who is five foot seven on a good day. I can’t call her the villain here.
Like I said in my last write up about this ordeal, Selena and Hailey both deserve better. I hope they both go on to find people who value their minds, bodies and time. Mostly, I hope that one day Hailey will grow enough to see that Selena was never her enemy and the Jenner girls were never her friends. Maybe one day we’ll see a more evolved version of the iconic Helena picture again.