Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty
Although he’s only 30 years old and she’s 27, Justin Bieber and Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) have already stirred up more gossip than most celebrities do in a lifetime. Still, even by the couple’s usual standards, the past few months have been a lot. Fans are constantly poring over their social media activity, convinced that they’re on the verge of a divorce, and now, Hailey’s own father has fueled speculation with a bizarre social media repost. At this point, after dutifully plugging my ears and covering my eyes for months as a Responsible Journalist who does not trade on such speculation, even I am compelled to ask: What the hell is going on?
For those who didn’t spend the 2010s following the many, many updates surrounding Justin Bieber’s love life, here’s a quick recap: Bieber and Baldwin first met in 2009 when they were both teens; she was a fan, and her father, actor Stephen Baldwin (brother of Alec Baldwin), pulled some strings. Years later, the two started hanging out, courtesy of their mutual friend Kendall Jenner. Throughout the 2010s, Bieber reportedly became the world’s most prolific romantic ping pong ball, bouncing between Selena Gomez, his now-wife, and an army of models. That suddenly changed in 2018, when the “Peaches” singer proposed to Hailey just months after breaking things off (again) with Selena. Somehow, even though the two had been icy for years, Hailey said yes.
The Biebers got married two months after their engagement, and, as documented by their first Vogue profile as a couple in 2019, their union was challenging from the start.