Selena Gomez has once again reminded the world that kindness is her compass, even when online narratives try to pull her into the storm. Following Hailey Bieber’s recent remarks in an interview with Wall Street Journal Magazine, Gomez took to Instagram in a since-deleted story that seemed to address the latest round of comparisons between her Rare Beauty brand and Bieber’s Rhode skincare line. The post, short but resonant, captured Gomez’s usual calm amid chaos: “Just leave the girl alone,” she wrote, according to E! News. “She can say whatever she wants. Doesn’t affect (my) life whatsoever. It’s just about relevance not intelligence. Be kind. All brands inspire me. There is room for everyone. And hopefully we can all stop.”
In those few sentences, Gomez distilled years of tension, speculation, and fan-driven conflict into a simple plea for empathy. The timing wasn’t coincidental. In the WSJ interview published October 14, Bieber was asked about how she felt when her skincare brand Rhode is compared to Gomez’s Rare Beauty. The 28-year-old model and entrepreneur didn’t name Gomez directly but expressed frustration over being placed in competition with others. “It’s always annoying being pitted against other people. I didn’t ask for that,” Bieber said. “When people want to see you a certain way and they’ve made up a story about you in their minds, it’s not up to you to change that.”
It was the sort of answer that could have ended there—two women, each successful in their own right, simply acknowledging the difficulty of public perception. But for the internet, that’s never enough. Comparisons between Gomez and Bieber have become a cultural fixation, an endless feedback loop of fan theories and social media analysis that neither of them seems interested in perpetuating. Still, every time one of them speaks publicly, the other’s name inevitably follows.
Their shared history with Justin Bieber remains the elephant in the room, a narrative that began more than a decade ago when Gomez and the pop star were Hollywood’s golden couple. Their on-and-off romance defined a generation of celebrity gossip. When Bieber married Hailey Baldwin in 2018, after years of uncertainty in his relationship with Gomez, fans immediately took sides. What followed was not a quiet adjustment to a new chapter, but a sustained obsession that continues to echo across social media years later.
For both women, that public fascination has been exhausting. They’ve addressed it before, always with the same message: there is no feud. Yet, the internet often refuses to believe it. The latest situation isn’t even the first time Gomez has had to step in and calm a digital wildfire.
The most infamous episode unfolded in early 2023—the so-called “eyebrow incident.” Gomez had posted a lighthearted TikTok video joking that she had “accidentally laminated [her] brows too much.” Harmless enough. But hours later, Kylie Jenner shared a selfie with the caption “this was an accident ?????” placed over her eyebrows. She then posted a FaceTime screenshot with Hailey Bieber, their eyebrows prominently on display. It was enough to send fans into overdrive. Thousands took the posts as subtle mockery toward Gomez, even though both Jenner and Bieber later denied it.
The internet didn’t want denial; it wanted drama. Soon, TikTok was flooded with videos dissecting every frame of the posts, every past interaction, every rumor that could connect Gomez, Bieber, and Jenner. Old clips were unearthed. Comments sections turned into battlefields. Within days, it had spiraled into a toxic mess of harassment and conspiracy. Gomez ultimately took a break from social media, while Bieber’s accounts were inundated with hate.
When Gomez returned online a few weeks later, she made her stance clear. “Hailey Bieber reached out to me and let me know that she has been receiving death threats and such hateful negativity,” Gomez wrote in an Instagram story at the time. “This isn’t what I stand for. No one should have to experience hate or bullying. I’ve always advocated for kindness and really want this all to stop.”
It was a quintessential Selena moment—graceful, empathetic, and firm. She didn’t need to defend herself or attack anyone. She simply reminded millions of followers that compassion should come before conflict. And yet, here we are again, watching history repeat itself.
The obsession with pitting these two women against each other speaks volumes about celebrity culture in the digital age. Both Gomez and Bieber are entrepreneurs, creatives, and public figures trying to navigate their industries while constantly being defined by a relationship that ended years ago. But online audiences have turned that history into a never-ending storyline. Every post, product, or interview is analyzed for coded messages, every expression scrutinized for signs of shade.
It’s a cycle fueled not by either woman’s words, but by the audience’s hunger for tension. Social media thrives on polarization; peace doesn’t trend. Conflict, however imagined, becomes content. Fans build entire identities around loyalty to one side, turning what might have been a passing comment into weeks of digital warfare. And when celebrities like Gomez and Bieber speak up to defuse the situation, their efforts are often interpreted as new material for speculation rather than closure.
That’s what makes Gomez’s deleted post so telling. It wasn’t defensive, nor was it a veiled jab. It was exhaustion made visible—a wish for everyone to finally let things be. “There is room for everyone,” she wrote, a statement that extends beyond the beauty industry and into the heart of how women are treated in public spaces.
The contrast between the two women’s brands is symbolic of their individuality, not their rivalry. Gomez’s Rare Beauty, launched in 2020, champions self-acceptance and mental health awareness. The brand’s name itself is a message: every person is “rare.” Rare Beauty has become synonymous with authenticity, its products often going viral not because of celebrity hype but because they genuinely resonate with consumers. Gomez has used the brand’s success to fund the Rare Impact Fund, which supports mental health resources for young people—an initiative deeply personal to her.
Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, on the other hand, entered the beauty scene in 2022 with a minimalist approach to skincare. Inspired by her love of glowing, “glazed donut” skin, Rhode’s branding focuses on simplicity, hydration, and transparency. Bieber’s personal involvement in product development and marketing gives the brand an approachable, direct voice. Like Rare Beauty, Rhode’s launches often sell out within minutes. Both women have successfully built empires that reflect who they are—distinct in vision, yet parallel in ambition.
The comparisons between Rare and Rhode might be inevitable, given their shared founders’ fame, but they overlook the fact that both brands can coexist. Gomez’s and Bieber’s audiences may overlap, but their philosophies complement more than compete. Rare invites people to embrace their individuality; Rhode encourages them to nurture their natural beauty. If anything, both brands collectively push the beauty industry toward more authenticity and less perfectionism.
It’s ironic that while their businesses promote self-love, the discourse surrounding them often reflects the opposite—jealousy, insecurity, and competition projected outward by strangers who don’t know either woman personally. Gomez’s remark that it’s about “relevance not intelligence” may hint at her frustration with how social media rewards speculation over substance. For every thoughtful conversation about beauty or mental health, there are hundreds of viral videos dissecting who said what about whom.
Both Gomez and Bieber have repeatedly tried to take the high road. They even appeared publicly together at a 2022 gala, posing for photos in what many saw as a gesture of goodwill and closure. It was a moment meant to end years of fan-fueled animosity, yet it barely lasted a few months before the internet resurrected the narrative once again. The persistence of these comparisons says less about them and more about the culture surrounding them—a culture that still finds it easier to pit women against each other than to let them succeed independently.
Behind their calm public personas, both women have hinted at how draining this cycle can be. Gomez has spoken openly about taking long breaks from social media for her mental health, explaining that she doesn’t even have the apps on her phone anymore. Bieber, too, has talked about the toll of online hate, saying that being constantly misrepresented and misunderstood is one of the hardest parts of fame. Their experiences mirror a broader truth: fame in the digital era isn’t just about visibility—it’s about endurance.
Even when both women stay silent, the narratives persist. Every new interview becomes a potential trigger for speculation. When Bieber answers a question about competition, it’s dissected as a dig. When Gomez speaks about kindness, it’s read as a reaction. This endless cycle reflects how the media ecosystem thrives on tension, often at the expense of human nuance.
In truth, both Gomez and Bieber seem to want the same thing: to move forward. They’ve each built careers and brands that have nothing to do with the man who once connected them. They’ve both used their influence to uplift others—Gomez through advocacy for mental health and body positivity, Bieber through honest conversations about confidence and self-image. Their professional and personal growth should be what defines them, not an outdated love triangle kept alive by internet algorithms.
The irony of this recurring drama is that it undermines exactly what both women stand for. Gomez has long promoted the idea of self-compassion, reminding her fans that beauty isn’t about comparison. Bieber, through her skincare philosophy, encourages people to embrace their natural selves rather than chase impossible standards. Yet, both continue to be dragged into a narrative that contradicts their core messages—a reminder that public perception often lags behind reality.
Perhaps that’s why Gomez’s deleted post resonates so strongly. It wasn’t just a defense; it was an invitation—to grow, to let go, to focus on what matters. Her insistence that “all brands inspire me” and that “there is room for everyone” reflects a worldview grounded in abundance, not scarcity. In her mind, success isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s a shared journey.
It’s easy to see why her words struck a chord. For years, celebrity culture has conditioned audiences to see competition where there could be collaboration. The idea that two women in similar industries can both succeed without animosity still feels revolutionary to some corners of the internet. But to Gomez, it’s common sense.
Her message also speaks to something larger than celebrity drama. It touches on how society often projects rivalry onto women in any field—music, business, or even friendship. The fascination with female competition is as old as entertainment itself. But in a world that increasingly prizes transparency and authenticity, perhaps that narrative is finally wearing thin.
Gomez’s gentle reminder to “be kind” is more than a personal statement; it’s a call to action for fans and followers everywhere. It’s an acknowledgment that empathy is still radical in a culture built on clicks and controversy. By deleting the post after sharing it, she may have also been signaling something else—that she’s tired of having to explain decency at all.
Meanwhile, Bieber’s own words in the Wall Street Journal interview reveal a similar exhaustion. Her acknowledgment that people “want to see you a certain way” underscores how powerless public figures can feel when others insist on telling their story for them. Despite her success as a businesswoman and creative, she’s still defined by narratives she didn’t write.
The parallels between them are striking: two women constantly misrepresented, two entrepreneurs thriving in their own lanes, and two human beings asking for a little peace.
The world may never stop talking about Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber, but maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the lesson lies in how they respond—not with anger, but with understanding. They don’t need to prove they’re not enemies; they simply live in a way that contradicts the assumption.
For Gomez, that means continuing to build Rare Beauty into a platform that celebrates individuality. For Bieber, it means growing Rhode into a brand that empowers natural confidence. For both, it means showing that kindness, even when it’s quiet, can be louder than gossip.
When Gomez wrote, “Hopefully we can all stop,” it wasn’t just about ending comparisons. It was about breaking a pattern—the endless loop of judgment, jealousy, and sensationalism that has defined so much of online culture. It was a wish for stillness, for humanity.
And maybe, after all these years, that’s the real story here: two women tired of being defined by each other, both choosing to rise above the noise.
Because in the end, they’re not rivals. They’re reflections—each navigating the same spotlight, each advocating for grace, and each reminding us that peace, though fragile, is still possible if we just decide to stop fueling the fire.
That’s not a feud. That’s growth. And if the world listens, it might just learn something about kindness from two women who’ve had every reason to lose it—but never did.
