Perhaps Justin Bieber should have seen this coming.
Perhaps he should have known that bragging about his new girlfriend would royally piss off two of his ex-girlfriends.
Over the weekend, Bieber went very public with Sofia Richie.
He and the 17-year old shared a number of photos together from their trip to Tokyo, where Bieber is currently on tour and where Richie is clearly enjoying the company of the artist.
Look. Here’s an example of one:
Based on how intimate Bieber and Richie seemed, along with the heart emojis used in some captions, it’s pretty clear the two are dating.
And this was made even more clear after Bieber took issue with fans giving Richie a hard time.
In response to their online vitriol, Justin wrote the following message yesterday on Instagram:
“I’m gonna make my Instagram private if you guys don’t stop the hate this is getting out of hand.
“If you guys are really fans you wouldn’t be so mean to people that I like.”
It seemed like a fair point at the time, like Bieber was trying to just stand up for his gal pal.
But Selena Gomez didn’t see it that way.
In a comment she left on Bieber’s Instagram page, Selena basically told her famous ex to keep his private life private… or else shut up about the consequences.
“If you can’t handle the hate then stop posting pictures of your girlfriend lol – it should be special between you two only,” Selena allegedly wrote, adding:
“Don’t be mad at your fans. They love you.”
We say she allegedly wrote this because it was not a message straight from Selena’s official account.
It’s possible that someone used Photoshop to make it look as if Gomez was taking Bieber to task.
But then another screen-capture of Bieber’s account revealed a response from the singer, who appeared to fire back at Gomez by writing:
“It’s funny to see people that used me for attention and still try to point the finger this way. Sad. All love.”
After Gomez responded to this comment by writing that Bieber cheated on her “multiple times,” Bieber strongly implied that Gomez cheated on him … with Zayn Malik!
This has all become a giant mess, made all the more confusing because it’s all based on Instagram comments.
No one is 100% certain that either Selena or Justin wrote any of these messages.
But Hailey Baldwin has decided to chime in anyway.
The model (who dated Biebs earlier this year, although she downplayed the relationship at the time) took to her own Instagram account on Sunday night to warn people not to “misplace blame.”
Was this message written in support of Selena?
“We’ve all had our fair share of things we’ve done, both good and bad. What makes the present so powerful is when we take complete responsibility for our actions, we allow ourselves self-growth,” the cryptic message reads.
“Misplacing the blame onto someone else isn’t going to get you to the next stage in life. so try not to manipulate a situation to make yourself look better.”
Baldwin concludes:
“No matter how much better off someone may seem, we are all humanly flawed in our own ways, but also share the same endless potential to be better than we used to be.”
According to People Magazine, Baldwin’s friends believe Richie made Bieber unfollow her on Instagram.
As a result, Baldwin is “super upset,” an insider tells the publication.
Does this mean she was aiming the quote above at Bieber? Probably.
We really have no idea at this point.
We admire Justin for standing up for Richie, but in the end, there’s a message here for everyone in the social media age:
Not everything has to be shared online. We’re just saying.