Lifestyle
It’s 2023, how are women still pitting womnen against each other over issues so trivial, that should have been best left in high-school.
Unless you’re living under a rock, you must be aware of the whole scoial media drama between Hailey Beiber and Selena Gomez — orchestrated by unhappy people on the internet. While the latest edition of this tomfoolery may have begun in February, the real catty narrative around Hailey and Selena have been doing the rounds since the former married Justin Bieber in 2018, six months after his reported breakup with Selena. Ever since, everything the two women do — right from posting a song on their personal IG stories to writing a slightly vague caption, everything is turned into a planned dig by theory makers on Instagram and TikTok.
While the ladies have reportedly mentioned under various platforms that there’s no bad blood between the two — netizens cannot seem to let the two women live in peace. Back in 2022, Selena and Hailey even publically posed together for a photo op, in an attempt to put the past behind at the Academy Museum Gala. And for a fleating moment, both beauty entrepreneurs could breathe a sigh of relief.
Cut to a month ago, the Rare Beauty founder posted about accidentally overlaminating her brows. On the same day, Kylie Jenner shared a video of herself and Hailey on FaceTime highlighting their eyebrows, which was instantly translated as an attack on the singer. TikToker Nuha, @devotedly.yours, shared her theory and left the internet in a frenzy. Both Selena and Kylie resorted to comment on this absurd theory. “This is reaching,” wrote Jenner, “U guys are making something out of nothing. This is silly,” selena backed the reality star with her comment on the same TikTok.
@devotedly.yours Replying to @its_alexhilton Half asleep making this but @piamia’s latest video says a lot without saying a single thing #selenagomez ♬ Calm Down – Rema & Selena Gomez
Despite the invidual involved in the supposed fued clearing the air, fans of both parties continued to vandalize their social media with hateful comments, Hailey more than Selena. Things grew even more tensed when online hate started picking up heat in real life. Recently, at a Justin Bieber concert, the crowd heckled him by chanting “Fuck Hailey Bieber” leaving the singer and his wife in complete dismay.
Amidst the chaos, Selena took a break from social media, dethroned kylie Jenner as the most followed women on Instagram and then came back to regular programming, posting about the filming of her show. But the bitter fans apparently weren’t done berating Mrs. Bieber on her behalf. The online bullying progressed to death threats for the Canadian singer’s wife and the two women had to yet again take a stand for each other publically.
On 24th March, 2023, Selena shared an Instagram story almost pleading her followers to leave Hailey alone. In the said story, she wrote, “Hailey Bieber reached out to me and let me know that she has been receiving death threats and such hateful negativity. This isn’t what I stand for.”
Following her statement, Hailey posted, “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.”
Hailey and Selena’s official statements
After this, they may just have to come out in the open and sign a peace treaty for the people to finally let them move one. In this entirely fabricated chaos, one can visibly see how easy it is to keep a triangle involving two women go on for so long. Ever since time immemorial, celebrities have been dating, breaking up and then dating ex partners of other celebrities. While men are seldom in the limelight for choosing a happily ever after with one half of a popularly shipped couple, female celebrities cannot seem to see the end of it. Both women in this situation are highly accomplished and are constantly striving to grow in their space, while allowing other women to do the same. Yet, they cannot catch a break about a decison in their lives involving the same man.
Even if any of the fan cooked up theories held any semblence of truth, does a sketchy comment or a shade-throwing IG story deserve a death threat in reaction? I don’t think so. Celebrity or not, no women needs to be answerable for her personal choices, irrespective of public opinion. It is about time we go back to treating social media like a space to harbour community spirit, instead of using it as a false court of law where the general public writes a death sentence for any one and everyone they don’t agree with.
