The current situation on the internet that involves everyone taking either Hailey Baldwin or Selena Gomez’s side because of the recent developments in Baldwin’s feud with Gomez is truly something else. I have not felt such strong mean girl energy since high school, and I’m here to tell you why it needs to stop. I am aware that Baldwin changed her last name to Bieber, but for clarity purposes I will be using her maiden name.
As Harry Styles once said, “treat people with kindness,” and as someone who has been to one of his concerts, Baldwin does not seem to follow that principle at all. Don’t worry, I will provide the briefest of timelines to this whole situation, but if you’d like a slightly longer explanation, I recommend watching Alisha Rai’s (@therealalisharai) video explaining everything on TikTok.
Skipping past Gomez and Justin Bieber’s relationship timeline, it’s no secret that after they broke up for the last time in March 2018, Justin Bieber started dating Baldwin about two months later. They were very quickly engaged and confirmed they were married later that year. Gomez’s song “Lose You to Love Me” very clearly spelled out the pain she went through as a result of the whole situation.
In 2023, a brand new mess is unfolding. Due to Gomez’s battle with lupus, which she has been very vocal about since she announced her diagnosis in 2015, she must take medication that causes her to gain weight. To any sane person, that is completely normal, but in January, body-shaming comments started rolling in after Gomez was photographed in a bikini on a boat with friends. Shortly after, Baldwin posted a TikTok with friends Kendall Jenner and Justine Skye in which they lip synced to a popular audio that says, “I’m not saying she deserved it, but God’s timing is always right.” People were quick to assume this video was directed in support of those body shaming Gomez. The video was quickly deleted and it was claimed it was not about Gomez.
Maybe the video genuinely wasn’t about Gomez, but the timing is just a little too suspicious. But then Gomez dethroned Kylie Jenner as the most followed woman on Instagram.
After posting on her Instagram story that she might have over-laminated her eyebrows, Jenner posted a screenshot of her on FaceTime with Baldwin on her Instagram story of each of them zoomed in on their eyebrows, which were styled very similarly to Gomez’s.
This has led to what feels like a full-blown investigation into how many times Baldwin has copied Gomez over the years. On a smaller scale, Gomez has posted that she likes certain music on social media and Baldwin quickly follows, posting that she also likes that music. On a larger scale, though, Gomez got a tattoo of a cursive “G” for her younger sister, Gracie, behind her ear. For no known reason, Baldwin has an almost identical tattoo in the same spot. In 2020, Gomez started a cooking show on HBO Max titled “Selena + Chef.” At the end of 2022, Baldwin announced a new cooking show-style series on her YouTube channel called “What’s In My Kitchen?”
I am not one to jump to conclusions, but there is simply too much evidence stacked against Baldwin for all of it to be a coincidence. There is even evidence that Baldwin was a big fan of her now-husband and Gomez’s relationship when they were still together. To me, it seems that admiration for that relationship turned into a jealous desire to become Gomez in a very strange way. All of this has turned into Baldwin acting like a high schooler whose crush is dating someone else on an exponentially higher stakes scale.
In an era where women can be pitted against each other for looking at someone a certain way, it’s incredibly disappointing to watch such harmful energy directed at someone like Gomez, a long-standing mental health advocate and generally unproblematic person in Hollywood. Whatever the truth is under all the layers of this situation, I hope the one thing everyone takes away is how toxic being a mean girl truly is.
Tate Raub is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Tate know by tweeting her @tatertot1310.
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