Hailey Baldwin is finally explaining the story behind the old photo taken with future husband Justin Bieber from when they were just young teenagers. He shared it to his Instagram the day before their formal Sept. 30, 2019 wedding ceremony, writing, “My wife and I :) where it all began.” Hailey appeared on The Tonight Show on Feb. 28, 2020 and host Jimmy Fallon told her, There’s a really cool, odd, history between you and Justin that is almost unbelievable. It’s like it’s out of a movie, but it’s real life. You met him back in 2009 when you were 13-years-old…with your dad? What went down?”
“I know, it sounds like this weird arranged marriage situation,” the 23-year-old model joked. “We met because my dad, he brought me to the Today show when Justin performed there. He was no more than 15 I think.” Jimmy asked Hailey if she was a Belieber, as his song “Baby” was helping propel him to stardom. But his career hadn’t reached that level yet, as Today was one of Justin’s first U.S. appearances.
“To be honest, this is the truth. He was so new that I didn’t really know a lot about him yet,” she recalled. “It was really kinda before anything. I met him and his mom and my dad kind of just connected as friends and we invited them over to our house the next day. So him and his mom just came over for family dinner with me and my family and we went bowling.”
Jimmy then showed the now infamous photo of Justin with his baby face and side-swept hairdo that he had when he burst on the music scene. Hailey had a closed, slight smile on her face and pointed to the Biebs with one of her fingers. “What’s funny is that in this photo, I’m super awkward. I had braces,” she explained. “Nowhere was there a thought that I was like, ‘Yeah, he probably has a crush on me.’ I did not — that was not the case at all. We just were hanging and [now] that is my entire husband. It’s ridiculous.”
Jimmy’s right. Their history does read like something out of a movie. Justin and Hailey ended up briefly dating in early 2016, but he broke things off when he realized he couldn’t be in a committed relationship. Earlier in the show, Hailey revealed that her April 2018 appearance on Fallon was what caused Justin to pick up the phone and hit her up after several years of not speaking. He saw her do a party trick where she opened a beer bottle with her teeth and that’s what got them back in touch.
“I got a certain phone call from a certain someone and it was a little like ‘Hey, how are you? I saw you on Jimmy Fallon last night. You were looking really good. I love that trick you did. I had no idea you could do that. It’s so cool,'” Hailey said and then revealed, “Cut to, I’m now married to that certain someone.” The pair started dating shortly after Justin got back in touch with Hailey. By July of that year, the pair got engaged. They made things official by marrying in a civil ceremony in a New York courthouse on Sept. 13, 2018, just five months after her Tonight Show appearance.