Selena Gomez on Justin Bieber: ‘I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse’

Justin and Selena hit up Panera for lunch

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were dealing with each other for SO LONG. When did they first start happening? By my records, they first became a “thing” in 2010? Then their first big public couple-debut was at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2011. I still remember that and how it was a really big deal at the time. He turned 17 years old right around then, and he and Selena were just starting to go out everywhere together (Selena was 18 at the time). The next decade would bring an endless amount of drama for Justin and Selena, with many makeups and breakups and accusations and other women and other men. I remember when Selena and The Weeknd finally ended things and she and Justin seemed to find each other again in late 2017/early 2018, I thought “another round of this bulls–t huh.” But then Justin up and married Hailey Baldwin.

This timeline is important, and so is the back-and-forth drama. Up until now, I’ve always considered Selena and Justin to just have an incredibly toxic energy together. They started out sweet enough, but fame, infidelity, codependence, drugs, substance abuse and ill health all took their toll. They couldn’t stay together but it seemed inevitable that they would be together again. Until he married Hailey. And that’s when… it seemed like Selena fell apart all over again. Selena has been promoting new music for months and it’s clearly about Justin, and she’s been saying for months that she wants Justin, a married man, to listen to the songs she wrote about him. I found that…shady. But I also found it on-brand for the toxic energy Justin and Selena still have. Well, now Selena says that she understands that Justin was emotionally abusive to her. She said this in an interview with NPR:

Everything that’s happened to her over the past few years: “The reason why I’ve become so vocal about the trials and tribulations of my life is because people were already going to narrate that for me. I wasn’t going to have a choice because of how fast everything moves now. And most of the time, yes, it’s not true, or it’s an embellished version of what the truth is. I want to be able to tell my story the way that I want to tell it. And all of these things happened, and I wasn’t going to deny that, I wasn’t going to pretend to put a smile on when it actually was awful — a few of the worst moments of my life. And I don’t know if I would have made it. And that’s medical reasons, obviously, and emotional reasons. I just had to find a way to claim my story.

Her mental health: “I feel great, yeah. I’m on the proper medication that I need to be on, even as far as my mental health. I fully believe in just making sure you check in with your doctors or therapist. [Taking care of mental health — ] that’s forever. That’s something I will have to continue to work on. Yes, I don’t think I just magically feel better. I have days where it is hard for me to get out of bed, or I have major anxiety attacks. All of that still happens.”

The song “Lose You To Love Me”: “I’m very proud of it. It has a different meaning to me now from when I wrote it. I felt I didn’t get a respectful closure, and I had accepted that, but I know I needed some way to just say a few things that I wish I had said. It’s not a hateful song; it’s a song that is saying — I had something beautiful and I would never deny that it wasn’t that. It was very difficult and I’m happy it’s over. And I felt like this was a great way to just say, you know, it’s done, and I understand that, and I respect that, and now here I am stepping into a whole other chapter.

NPR asks “Saying goodbye to Justin Bieber, who I’m assuming you’re speaking about.” “You had to get the name in, I get it.”

Looking back at the painful times in her life is not hard for her: “No, because I’ve found the strength in it. It’s dangerous to stay in a victim mentality. And I’m not being disrespectful, I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse — [NPR: “You mean emotional abuse?”] Yes, and I think that it’s something that — I had to find a way to understand it as an adult. And I had to understand the choices I was making. As much as I definitely don’t want to spend the rest of my life talking about this, I am really proud that I can say I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt and I’ve found a way to just walk through it with as much grace as possible.

[From NPR]

Okay, what she’s saying is more nuanced than “Justin is emotionally abusive and that’s my narrative now.” I can actually tell that she’s done some deep work in therapy about all of this, to understand (as she says) “the choices I was making.” You can still be the victim of emotional abuse (as Selena says) even if you’re making choices that are unhealthy for you, even if you’re making the choice to go back again and again. While I sometimes find Selena to be an unreliable narrator on what has really happened in her life, I do think that she’s just trying to figure her way out of all of the toxic – and perhaps abusive – drama from the past decade. But I also think this is quite an admission too: “I felt I didn’t get a respectful closure.” She thought Bieber would come back to her. She didn’t think he’d drop her and run off and marry Hailey. And let’s be honest, a big chunk of this current narrative is about that too.

Selena Gomez at the Premiere of Universal Pictures' "Dolittle" at Regency Village Theatre

Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.

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43 Responses to “Selena Gomez on Justin Bieber: ‘I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse’”

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  1. Jane says:

    I dated my coworker, which ended really badly. One time, I found a British coin he’d given to me after he visited there. It was a joke between us, but it brought up a painful memory.

    So the next day, I went and quietly put the coin back on his desk. I know he’d find it, but at least I’d be a rid of it. I then went and told my therapist about it. She asked me why I didn’t just throw it away. That took me by surprise, because I honestly thought she’d be happy with me for “letting go”.

    She then explained that I wasn’t “letting go”. He would find the coin, know I’d put it there, and feel something. Even a little stirring. Maybe he’d even say something. And I knew that. In a way, I wanted him to react, and that’s why I did what I did.

    My point in bringing up this story is that Selena can talk about moving on and learning about herself as much as she wants, with the pretext of controlling her public image. But honestly, the only way to truly move on is to stop trying to get a reaction out of him. Writing songs about her married ex and making thinly veiled statements about their relationship aren’t going to accomplish that. It’s foolish to think that this isn’t a way to dangle bait in front of him.

    And that’s not moving on. I understand she wants to control the narrative around her, but it also comes across as an excuse to rile up drama for publicity. It’s so disingenuous of her, considering her message of support for mental health.

    • Kaiser says:

      I really love this comment and I agree wholeheartedly.

    • lucy2 says:

      That’s a great comment, Jane. And I definitely agree that’s what she needs to do – truly move on. Be happy she’s out of a bad relationship, remember the lessons from it, but move forward.

    • Wilma says:

      AMEN.

      This is all just drama talk from her. Perhaps she did some reflecting, but she didn’t learn anything and is still stirring the pot.

      • BellaBella says:

        I think she actually sounds like she has a good therapist who is helping her work her way through it.

    • melo says:

      Yeeeeeeeees! This is exactly what I thought.
      Most relationships do not have adequate closure…that’s something you have to do for yourself.

      • Bunny says:

        I don’t believe in “closure” of any kind, at least not in the sense that “closure” is some sort of resolution that leaves you at peace or even happy.

        Bad, painful things happen. You learn to work around the pain so that life can go on. That’s it. You get used to the pain, and it eventually spins further out from your orbit. At some point, it is replaced by other things/people/events.

    • Elisa says:

      Jane, that’s a great comment.
      To me it sounds like she is repeating what she worked out with her therapist – so she has understood it on a rational level, but she is not feeling / living it.

    • Nahema says:

      Agreed, she hasn’t moved on but I think it’s a journey and she will get there in her own time. I like that she’s talking about it though because I’m sure she’s helping others.

    • Hello Kitty says:

      Couldn’t agree more. I had a toxic ex. We followed each other on social media etc. in fact he is still dating the girl he cheated on me with. One day out of the blue he sent me a message saying he hoped I had a nice life. I guess that was supposed to be upset me or anger me, and provoke a response. I never responded. I’ve never seen or talked to him again. That was closure. I’m now happily married and he rarely crosses my mind, but for instances like this.

      I understand her need for closure, but true closure comes from shutting the door, locking it and throwing away the key.

    • JByrdKU says:

      Wonderfully said. I’ve been guilty of that type of behavior many times, and it’s only with a little distance (and growing-up) that I think you really start to gain that new perspective.

    • Fleur says:

      I really love that story. Thank you. It sounds like you had a really good therapist–and your therapist sounded like my therapist. When I went to therapy, I didn’t really know what I’d be getting myself into. A good therapist makes a huge difference. I’d gone to a male therapist in college, and I found the whole experience a little fruitless–it worked as an emotional release, but I found myself narrating the stories I wanted him to hear, and giving him the answers I suspected he wanted me to say.

      Fast forward fifteen years, in the midst of a true emotional and mental health crisis, I sought therapy again. This time I had a young female therapist, a little younger than me, and man, she did not pull any metaphoric punches. She was not there to pat me on the back. She wasn’t there to build me up with platitudes or even just to be a friendly ear to listen. She was stoic, offering no emotional reactions of her own, giving little in the way of verbal “encouragement” (feel good phrases) but also really deconstructed the whys of my behavior. She made me look at the root causes of a lot of my actions and reactions, the paths that led backward from my crisis point, not just months but years and decades. she made me analyze the way I reacted to people, the way I tailored my actions around them, she made me see moments when I was being manipulated or doing the manipulating. It was the most helpful therapeutic experience and it got me through one of the darkest periods in my life.

      To readers out there: if you are struggling, find a therapist. Please. and try to find a good one who can really call you out on your **** . as well as someone who can support you as you change toxic behavior, because that is truly, truly the only way to get out of those patterns.

    • tback says:

      There is a thing called “trauma bonding.” I’m experiencing it through the process of ending my 20 year marriage to an emotionally abusive partner. I caught him cheating on me with a 23 year old he was coaching at CrossFit. He’s 48. Yet I still find myself longing for that dynamic. It is not logical of course, but it is real.

  2. Leriel says:

    I tried to make an opinion about that, but I understood that I’m totally tired of this drama. They started when I was in a high school, it was a main subject of school gossips about celebrities, and here I am, doing a master degree, and this is still a subject, especially after Justin marriage to another woman.

    I am happy for Selena doing a therapy, but she’s still sounded shady towards Justin, blaming him not only for abuse but for moving on with other woman. It’s heartbreaking yes, but Selena may just ban questions about him or not explaining her songs (seriously she wanted him to listen to songs, girl, you like 27, even your bff Taylor moved from this narrative), but she comes back to this subject constantly and publicly, like she’s trying to convince public and herself that she grew over it. I hope she will continue therapy and leave this in the past, because if it’s exhausting for general public, for her it’s ten times more.

  3. Mabs A'Mabbin says:

    Hanging on to this conversation is detrimental as well. Especially publicly. Seems a lot of celebrity girls around her age are making similar mistakes. Sometimes moving on means making a decision to move on, and as much as it hurts, resign yourself to seek out all things new and different. Cry in your pillow at night if you need a release time to time, find that pressure valve, but take a turn and go a different route. And lastly, sometimes hand-holding and needy is the worst thing for you. You’re not in high school anymore. You are in charge. So take charge. Quit talking about it and quit massaging the past.

    Just read the top two posts. Guess we’re all channeling the same something lol!

  4. Astrid says:

    I feel kind of mean and bitchy this morning….she’s 27 years old. Sort of seems like it’s time to move on?

  5. LORENA says:

    I think it could be an issue of “you hurt me and now you seem happily married, its not fair”

    She wants him to feel bad for everything he did to her and doesn’t think he deserves to be in love. She was supposed to move on, find a good man and be happy, NOT HIM

    Idk but i think there is some of that to it

    • Elle says:

      I mean honestly for all the back and forth in this relationship and the toxic nature of it, I think he could have been vulnerable to emotional abuse as well. I mean, I think they both were in a cycle of hurting each other.

      I have noticed he has said a lot of kind words about her but has also mentioned how she took a lot of what he would say the wrong way and he was always scared of how she’d react. I think she has in actuality appeared the possessive one here. I think he has seemed more balanced in speaking of the relationship and she seems oddly possessive still? I mean, all her songs so far are about him.

  6. Sumodo1 says:

    As a parent of a now 35-year-old son, you can say: “Make better choices” till you turn blue, until they realize that their bad choices can really hurt them. At some point, they get it. Selena, live a healthy, happy life.

  7. Louise177 says:

    I could be misreading what she’s trying to say but it seems like Selena is blaming Justin for everything. I didn’t follow their relationship closely but it seemed they were just bad for each other. Both were playing games and just something I can’t put my finger on. I also don’t get why people don’t name names when it is obvious who they are talking about. They act like they rising above it all but aren’t.

  8. lemonylips says:

    It’s easy to say that someone needs to move on. It’s healthy to do so. Unfortunately, I know what it’s like to be with a toxic and narcissistic person. Traumatic experience, and what two people are able to do to each other, just the knowledge of that is hard to escape. It took me three years to let go and heal myself and the relationship lasted a year. Everyone has their own pace. Now we can talk about it not being good for her to write songs about it and even though I have a different music taste, maybe some people can find some comfort in that music. Or just say “yeah, I know what that’s like” and it helps them just a little bit. So I can’t say I don’t understand her. If she still wants to let it out in her music – let her. Whatever works.

    • wisca says:

      Yeah, these comments are quite unkind to somebody who clearly experienced trauma, but in patriarchy women often stand (stan) with men.

  9. Allz says:

    I find these comments kind of weird? So she’s 27, she can’t be hurt from a breakup of a relationship that lasted like 10 years? I think she wrote the one song (and really it’s one song out of her new album) about moving on so the general public knows her side and can relate. Every artist does things like she’s doing. I just listened to Harry Styles’ new album and it’s basically an entire diary about his last relationship (he even told an interview its about her and put her tattoo on the back of the cd). That relationship apparently lasted less than a year. Unfortunately the click bait is what every celebrity does. It may be unhealthy or it have be actually helping her. Who knows, but it’s something I’ve seen be so common.

  10. Winnie Cooper’s Mom says:

    She’s like the friend you have who like a year after a breakup is constantly saying “I’m over it. So over it…. can’t you tell? It’s like so over.” But obviously you’re definitely not over it. She needs to keep up with her therapy and healthy habits. Hope she can rise above this and move on.

  11. Justpassingby says:

    Well, to me it sounds as if Justin has NPD and she’s the victim of narcissistic abuse. That can take years to recover from. That can also lead to autoimmune diseases (lupus?), cancers, some people who suffer from it can’t cope and commit suicide. If this is the case, she’s a survivor and she is fully entitled to express herself and what she went through.

  12. BANANIE says:

    I’m really glad she brought up her medication. I believe that for many, many people struggling with mental illness, medication is key. And even though people are more open about having anxiety or depression, talking about medication is still taboo to a certain extent.

  13. Binny says:

    I think Selena is so toxic and attention seeking. I’m the same age as she is, and if any of my friends were still droning on about their failed high school relationship, I’d tell them to seek better professional help, because whatever she’s doing now isn’t working.

    • Elle says:

      Not only that, she has seemed oddly possessive. She Isn’t actually letting go. And I think she isn’t thinking about where he was at when they were together. She’s claiming she was young and didn’t know how to make the right choices, well, the same can be said for him. They were both child stars and they both did not know how to navigate a healthy relationship at that point. And by the time they tried again, damage had already been done, harboured resentments etc. I do feel her statements are a bit biased, she makes it sound so one-sided when it was obvious she has been possessive and messy about it..

      • stormsmama says:

        @Elle
        I agree with you

        But I am also proud of her that she at least is trying to figure her messy self out

        She maybe needs a good dose of humility though…
        Make the music, let the pain be your muse, but realize we all have our proverbial cross(es) to bear and
        its not all about her
        look around and see how blessed she is and be filled with gratitude and let go
        for real

        Still I recognize that heart break can really break a person if they dont do the hard work, and even then, as Ive learned it life, sometimes you just have to accept- he’s just not that into you
        its not for you
        and life isn’t fair and love isn’t either

  14. Emily says:

    I went through a bad breakup in university. Eventually all of my friends were tired of me talking about it. I think the reason it wasn’t so hard to move past was because there was emotional abuse; it’s difficult to reconcile the good parts of the person with the shitty things they do and the gaslighting. Its a lot to unpack and takes time. I feel bad for Selena but I wish she would work it out privately and not publicly. Maybe she feels the need to remind the world that JB sucks as he tries to rewrite history (aka it was always Hailey who had his heart) and show what a great husband he is. It would make me sick if I were her. Like others said, that’s not moving on.

  15. Cheryl says:

    I wonder if she has borderline personality disorder on top of her other conditions? I only mention because deep attachments like this can sometimes happen with people who have the disorder (myself included). Plus she is doing dialectical behaviour therapy, which is the primary treatment of BPD (although yes, you can use DBT for a variety of mental illnesses, and doesn’t mean a person who utilizes DBT is borderline). It’s just a thought, and would make sense as to why it seems she “cant let go”. Relationships like these with people who have BPD are much more complex than the relationships that neurotypical people would experience. For BPD, it can be almost like a trauma-bonding. A breakup is more than just a breakup. It’s actual emotional trauma. This experience with Justin could have absolutely torn her apart inside, and she could still be in recovery from it. I’ve had that sort of experience. I had a trauma-bond experience like that a few years ago, and to this day, the emotional scars from that can still feel so fresh at times, even despite the heavy therapy work I’ve done and continue to do. It didn’t help that my ex was also like Justin, he had absolutely no regard for what I was going through. The pain I felt. When a person like that makes you feel like what you had was nothing and that you were nothing, it can really mess with your head and self-worth. It gets magnified 100x-fold with the BPD. So I truly do feel for her.

  16. MasterandMargarita says:

    Wow. You guys are sure one tough crowd…. a deep or toxic or even just a long love takes a whole lot of time to get past. Especially if you were stung the way she was – he is very publicly in love with someone new. It is hurtful even years down the road. It is a hurtful and a lengthy process to get past someone when you are an adult! Let alone a relationship that started and tumbled through teenagehood and young adulthood. Give the girl a break! As for writing songs about it – um doesn’t Taylor do this on the regular? It’s both how artists cope and make money. The girl is out there speaking her truth, whatever that may be. She isn’t being overly critical of him.

    I had a long and twisted and sometimes toxic love for 5 years starting at 28 years old. Took me 1.5 years just to begin to see things objectively afterwards. I still have pangs of short pangs of pain sometimes, and I work through them through therapy, friends, writing, or wine. And I do not have a public platform. You guys would tear my writings apart – why can’t she get over it!

    As to the – shes toxic and attention seeking and possibly has borderline personality disorder comments – wow, way harsh, Tai (e.g. see Pete Davidson by comparison). She is obviously getting professional help.. but I would love to see how many people on this thread go through something long, twisted, and heartbreaking and extra public and come out squeaky clean on the other side..

    FYI = dialectical behavior therapy is a form of therapy that is not exclusive to BPD. it is a coping therapy at its core.

    • Elle says:

      I mean I understand, I have empathy for child stars in general and hope she can heal from an abnormal upbringing. But what she is accusing him of is really serious yet incredibly vague. She has said even in here music the main issues were infidelity and he was self centred. He was young and in a bad place. So was she frankly. She has publicly talked more negatively in general of him, even during their breaks, not taking the high road. And it is concerning that she gives zero facts about this alleged abuse. Sorry but that kind of vagueness then seems more like slander, it doesn’t point to anything specific. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, she is just so vague in attacking him that I’m feeling she isn’t seeing this fully.. as it actually was.

    • cheryl says:

      Yes I mentioned in my post that DBT doesn’t equate to BPD. But this entire relationship, breakup and the subsequent fallout didn’t have her sitting in her pyjamas and crying into her ice-cream for a week or diving into a bottle of wine every so often. The fact that she has had severe emotional breakdowns over it that required emergency intervention and immediate admittance into a mental health facility shows that her particular mental health issues are much more serious than we assume, and I was expressing obvious empathy for that and everything else that she went through and continues to go through. Plus an assumption of BPD wouldn’t be a huge reach. Her public behaviours and the things that she’s admitted in interviews over the years would be very consistent with the symptoms (and by the way, Borderline isn’t some dirty word that automatically equals to being “toxic”). But regardless of an official diagnosis or not, she does have severe debilitating issues in regards to her mental health that she is trying to manage, and I was speaking on the fact that we shouldn’t be beating her up over “not getting over him”, and to actually give her props because shes doing the hard work thats required to heal. To dismiss what shes actually went through as “something that everybody goes through” is not doing anybody any favours.

    • Mabs A'Mabbin says:

      I’ve had really tough breakups. And as a woman, I’m going take wild guess and say that most of us have. Are you needing statistics or something, because I’m sure we can all do a little research. The difference between you and her is that millions aren’t listening to you. While I might not think she’s being toxic, she’s being ridiculous and not setting any kind of positive precedent. If she’s getting therapy, that’s great. Everyone could use therapy. If she’s a role model for younger girls (which she is), this is NOT how we handle breakups.

      During your awful breakup, did you lose it in front of people, friends, coworkers? Everytime y’all got together, is that what you talked about? Like in a group? Or do you have a friend that does that? Can’t talk about anything else but her problems? Does it bug you? Isn’t it draining? Constantly rehashing something that happened years ago she can’t let go of? Whatever the case, this young woman hasn’t taught a thing to her fans about how to handle life. I don’t even follow her, but whenever I see her pop up, I know what she’s going to say. And yes, thank you for mentioning Taylor…. I think the same about her.

      If you need to publicly get something off your chest, then you need to one-and-done it. We shouldn’t be reading about Justin by way of Selena’s words at this stage. My God. Her PR people should be better than this. You and I are expected to hold our heads up, go to work, smile and be friendly and attentive and get the damn job done. Then we can go home, pop open a bottle of wine and boo-boo to our heart’s content. If you’re a celebrity, then that’s your job. Being in the public is your job. Treat it that way.

      If the girl’s pain is so much deeper and disturbing than the rest of the female population, then she should be advised to take some time off, away from interviews and cameras. But I doubt she falls outside the sliding scale of the rest of us. Some of us probably have a disorder here or there, a condition, a need, a lack of something, whatever, but we live and we have to live around the people in our orbit. We learn. We grow. We make mistakes and then start over. She’s not a little girl anymore, 18 and holding hands with a YouTube singing sensation.

      • cheryl says:

        I find she is finding her way to becoming a healthy role model when I read the actual interviews she gives these days, especially in the world of mental health. As someone who also lives with debilitating mental health issues, its very nice to see that she is healing from her experiences. And I don’t know about the other people who live with these debilitating disorders, but when I find people within the public sphere talking about their own experiences, especially when they too are on their healing journey, it helps me too. It is very clear that she is working tirelessly on her mental health, and it sends a very clear message to her audience that yes, you can go through some horrific traumatic things, and you can still move forward and find the magic in life again. You can go to the bottom depths of emotional hell and go through all of this horrific pain, and you can come back from it. And I admire that, and I think it is a very positive thing for her younger audience to see. The ending of stigmas. That having a mental illness that we can’t control, its not a dirty thing to be ashamed and shouldn’t be an embarrassment to our friends and families and that we could and SHOULD learn how to advocate for ourselves and our healing. That we can seek out help and healing for ourselves too. We too can take our lessons from our experiences and grow from them and move forward. Young girls can learn from her mess of a life and her mistakes, because she already went through the fire herself. As for me, I actually learned a lot through her experiences, the parallels of what she went through, and her story has helped my own healing journey too. I think she and her sharing her experiences, is valuable to the mental health world. We need all the allies we can get in regards to ending the stigmas. So I appreciate her speaking out.

  17. Jaded says:

    When I was twenty I fell in love for the first time with someone I thought was perfect for me. I was intoxicated with love and threw my whole self, body and soul, into the relationship. Slowly but surely the guy started picking things apart about me…didn’t like my hair, didn’t like the way I dressed, etc., but all very gently at first. Then bit by bit the complaints got worse. I wish you’d dye your hair blonde. I wish you’d not wear such frumpy dresses, I want you to dress more sexy. Here, I bought this halter top for you. Then after about a year I started becoming an insecure mess, always waiting for the next complaint about something I was doing or saying that he didn’t like. During this time I noticed he was drinking a lot, sometimes he’d show up so drunk we had to cancel our plans. In those days I was a classic enabler and would just let these episodes slide but the more he drank the uglier his comments became to the point where I broke things off with him. Oh he’d promise to straighten up and fly right and I’d fall for his boundless charm again and again, but the gaslighting and drinking and complaining incessantly about me finally caught up and I ended it once and for all. It took me several years and a ton of therapy to get “me” back again because he’d basically sucked everything out of me. I was an empty shell, no personality, no joy, just a dark, empty shell. So I totally relate to what she went through with Bieber. It was and is emotional abuse, especially when he was going through his “druggie” phase. Extricating myself from that situation and finding my real self again was one of the hardest few years of my life and she seems to have come through a similarly bad situation with a good understanding of how and why it happened and is moving forward with the right tools to help her heal. I wish her well.

  18. Veronica S. says:

    Combined with the depth of her chronic health issues AND the pressures of the industry she works in, I wouldn’t be surprised if she is suffering from some fairly serious emotional trauma from this relationship and the circumstances around it. I wish she had an opportunity to work out all of this toxic emotion outside of the spotlight, in a place where it is isn’t displayed all over the world and social media, and it’s a shame that choice got taken away from her so young before she really could understand what fame costs. At this point, I just hope somebody close to her takes her aside and gives her the support she needs so she can move on and get emotional closure.

  19. Mia says:

    I think there was toxicity and abuse on both sides. I remember how she got on his Instagram and told him Sofia Richie deserved the bullying and racism from his fans. And that if he wanted fans to leave her alone maybe he shouldn’t post with Sofia.

    So I find something disingenuous about her healing and the narrative she is presenting because I feel it is still based around the need to say that only Justin was the bad one and make everyone acknowledge and agree to it in order for her to move on. I don’t see much accountability from her at all.

    I think the truth is he was a jerk but she was too. There was video when they were teens and being filmed by some phone and she hits him and he says “Selena, not in public” and keep in mind he was 15 or 16 when he started dating her at 19/20. So imagine what people would have to say if the gender was reversed?

    And there was that interview she gave where she laughs about making him cry really hard once when they broke up. So again, jerk behavior.

    I think Justin is disingenuous in his healing too as he still has exploiters like Scooter around and that questionable church. But I believe he is making attempts at accountability and trying to be happy. They should both heal in private as they are both still young and obviously dealing with the aftermath of toxic first love.

  20. Ashlyn says:

    I disagree with the comments saying she is a good role model. Instead of focusing on her ex constantly, why doesn’t she give any attention to the “friend” who donated her kidney? Apparently they aren’t even speaking anymore, because Selena continues to use alcohol and drugs and disrespects that former friend. Her wholesome image is so phoney. She feeds off the Beiber breakup story and won’t let go, and she’s running herself into the ground. I do feel bad for her because she’s surely struggling, but she needs so much help and a long break from the industry.

    • L says:

      BS! her kidney donor is still in her life and praised her music not that long ago +she’s not doing drugs, quit it with this fake news. I think she’s genuinely a nice person but still needs time to heal from the traumatic experience, especially while dealing with Lupus. Btw it’s apparent JB also needs help with his own mental health issues. IMO anyway.