Justin Bieber has spoken out about his eight year romance with Selena Gomez, weeks after the Lose You to Love Me singer accused him of emotionally abusing her during their on-off relationship.
Bieber, 25, confessed he had been ‘reckless’ during his time with Gomez, 27, and also admitted to having still been experiencing hurt when he began dating his now wife Hailey Baldwin, 23.
Initially, Bieber told Baldwin he would be unable to stay faithful to her, as he was still plagued by feelings of ‘unforgiveness’ from his previous long-term relationship.
Opening up to radio DJ Zane Lowe during an interview on Apple Music, Bieber revealed the hurt he had been dealing with when he first got together with Baldwin:
I said, ‘Listen, I’m still really hurt and still trying to figure out my way, and I’m not ready to make a commitment to you in a way that … I just don’t want to say something and do the opposite’. I was at the point where I’d done that in the past.
And I just was honest with her, I was like, ‘I’m not in a place to be faithful,’ and all this sort of stuff, that I wanted to be – but I just wasn’t there yet.
He added:
I think I was just hurt from my previous relationship. I think I still was dealing with a lot of unforgiveness and all that sort of stuff. To be honest, I don’t think I even knew what I was really struggling with at the time. I don’t think I knew I was dealing with unforgiveness.
I was just in a place where I knew I didn’t want to tell [Baldwin] one thing and… I felt like she respected me at the time and I had a lot of respect for her, and so I just didn’t want to say something and then she’d see me off doing some other thing.
[…] But either way, she loved me and seeing me with other people hurt her. And so with that being said, she went out and did things that hurt me. And so just this hurt, I’ve hurt her, she hurt me. And then before tour we just really stopped talking, I was really upset.
You can watch Bieber’s Apple Music interview for yourself below:
Bieber went on to speak candidly about his ‘reckless’ behaviour while he was still with Gomez:
Before that, in my previous relationship, I went off and just went crazy and went wild, just was being reckless. This time I took the time to really build myself and focus on me, and try to make the right decisions and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, I got better.
Bieber and Gomez broke up for the final time in March 2018. By June 2018, Bieber was dating Baldwin, and by July they were engaged. They were legally married in September that year, with their official religious wedding ceremony taking place a year later, on September 30, 2019.
Speaking with NPR in January, Gomez spoke openly about her relationship with Bieber, stating she had been ‘a victim to certain abuse’.
Clarifying she was referring to emotional abuse, Gomez told NPR:
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.
If you’re experiencing distressing thoughts and feelings, the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is there to support you. They’re open from 5pm–midnight, 365 days a year. Their national number is 0800 58 58 58 and they also have a webchat service if you’re not comfortable talking on the phone.
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.