Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber used to date — on and off (and on and off, again) for years.
Justin Bieber is now engaged to Hailey Baldwin.
The common thread here is Justin Bieber. Seemingly, Selena has nothing to do with his engagement to Hailey. That is kind of the point of an exclusive relationship. Yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a story that doesn't in some way drag Selena into the news of this new union.
Yes, Selena Gomez is Justin Bieber's ex, in fact even a recent ex. But feelings change and people evolve. Justin's relationship with Hailey has nothing to do with Selena. So why can't people leave her out of the commentary?
She's been asked by paparazzi she thinks about the match. Fans keep asking her if she's "OK" in the comments of her Instagram posts — and as the most-followed person on the platform, that means a lot of fans are asking. People have tried to find a hidden meaning in her sartorial choices. Headlines everywhere are connecting all of her actions — from wearing a bikini on a boat, to getting extensions — as a series of clues that will tell a story of her current emotional condition. That "only the strong survive" tee was not a coincidence; unlike other people in the public eye, she does not deny the power a carefully-chosen outfit can have.
But do we really even need to know how she feels about it? Relationships are hard to get over, even harder when they are in the public eye. Or sometimes they are not, and you move forward. Either way, why do people seem to think she doesn't exist without him? Why is this viewed as some great loss to her, as if Justin Bieber was her one and only shot at happiness? Knowing the way love works, I think she'll love again. It's 2018, and women are doing just fine with or without relationships. Selena is doing just fine in both her professional and personal life! (To reiterate: she was just chilling on a yacht in a velvet bikini, which is far more than I can say for myself, TBH.) "Despacito" is my all-time favorite jam, yet I doubt that the guy who helped catapult its remix into the pop culture stratosphere is keeping her awake at night.
The fact remains that the public loves pitting women against each other, especially if it's a jealous ex-girlfriend narrative — and even when all signs point to the fact that such a narrative probably doesn't exist. In past months, Selena didn't talk all that much about Justin. She has alluded to him in past months, sure, but it is especially striking that someone with the platform she has has only ever discussed him in vague ways. An Instagram she posted in honor of his birthday this year only referred to him as "someone," and she very briefly talked to Billboard about what brought Justin back into her life in November. Gone are the days when they filmed homemade music videos together or posted couple selfies to Instagram. Instead, if she sings about him in a new song, we never really know, because she doesn't tell us either way.
It seems that all people want to know about Selena is the fact that she and Justin dated; their combined names dominates search-bar autocompletes when you begin to type only hers in, and the media [narrative surrounding her album Revival seemed hellbent on reminding you that she is Justin Bieber's ex. The fact that Justin confirmed that she inspired a number of songs on the album he dropped weeks later did not help matters, but only on her end. His career has never been defined by who he is or isn't dating. Why can we not extend the same courtesy to women of all working industries, even famous ones?
This is not to say that Selena is necessarily a victim; she knew what she was getting into when she started dating Justin, who has been one of the biggest pop stars in the world for a decade. But who someone used to date is rarely the most interesting thing about them, and it also plays into a tired norm that your relationship status makes you who you are. Selena is a complete person with or without Justin, just as he is without her. It's understandable to buy into the ins and outs of a celebrity relationship — after all, their vacations and date nights are far more glamorous than our own, usually — but only thinking about these people in such a way reduces them to living little more than Bachelor-esque plotlines 24/7. You can argue that they signed up for the side-effects that come with fame, but it stands to question why this is one of those accessories.
She's not the only woman celebrity who has gotten this treatment, of course. Jennifer Aniston addressed the topic of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in an interview with Vogue in 2008; it was the first time of a very limited few in which she commented on her ex's new relationship outright. But while she answered the question of her own choice, she didn't ask to be brought into the fray when Brad and Angelina later divorced. Understandably, she did not address the divorce. There was no need. It wasn't her relationship. Yet people tried to make her part of the narrative anyway, as they always do, with anyone. Has a friend ever sent you an Instagram your ex posted, either with a new fling or not, anticipating you to either spiral or dissect every last pixel? It happens to all of us, famous or not.
Why does it have to be this way? If an ex of mine got engaged — and trust me, they have — I'd want nothing more but to ignore the moment until I was good and ready on my own. Maybe that would take all of five seconds, if the wounds were healed properly. Maybe it would take longer. It's not really for anyone but me to say. The same courtesy should be extended to Selena, and to Cazzie David, and to anyone who ever finds themselves on the hearing end of someone else's romantic happiness. It is the least we can do to allow them to establish their own solo happiness, too.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Selena Gomez Is Sending a Message to People Who Are Worried About Her
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