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Selena Gomez is off social media – sort of. The Only Murders in the Building star is one of the few celebs who’s been upfront about how her social media accounts – including her Instagram, with its 378+ million followers – are run by someone else. While she doesn’t specifically name him when talking with Vanity Fair for its 29th Annual Hollywood Issue, Selena, 30, hints that her relationship with Justin Bieber was the reason behind this social media handoff. “I never got the chance to go to an actual high school,” says Selena. “The world was my high school for the longest time, and I started getting inundated with information that I didn’t want.”
“I went through a hard time in a breakup, and I didn’t want to see any of the [feedback]—not necessarily about the relationship, but the opinions of me versus [someone] else,” she says. “There’d be thousands of really nice comments, but my mind goes straight to the mean one. People can call me ugly or stupid, and I’m like, Whatever. But these people get detailed. They write paragraphs that are so specific and mean. I would constantly be crying. I constantly had anxiety…I couldn’t do it anymore. It was a waste of my time.”
Justin, 28, and Selena began dating officially in 2011, with that year’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party asking as their makeshift Senior Prom. Their relationship seemed to fall apart in 2014, though they remained in each other’s orbit for years. Selena was romantically linked to Zedd and dated The Weeknd. Justin was involved with numerous women, including Sofia Richie. He and Selena seemed to have a reconciliation in 2017, and the two spent time with each other on multiple occasions. But, in 2018, they split for good. Justin married Hailey Baldwin in September 2018. In 2019, Selena released “Lose You To Love Me,” a song that closed the book on their time together.
After being compared to Justin’s girlfriends, Selena had enough. She gave over her Twitter and Instagram accounts to her team and had been living her best life since then. She did admit to Vanity Fair that she has TikTok on her phone because she finds the culture on that platform to be “a little less hostile” than others (“I’m kind of a nerd. I love making funny videos. I’ll get recipes and makeup ideas and hair ideas.”)
She also doesn’t fault social media in general. “There are wonderful things about social media—connecting with fans, seeing how happy and excited they are and their stories,” adds Selena. “But usually that’s filtered through [for me now]. I created a system. Everything I do I send to my assistant who posts them. As far as comments, my team will put together a few things that are encouraging.”
Though Selena is not fond of the “detailed” paragraphs of hate from her fans, there’s plenty of love and respect between her and Hailey. Hailey revealed on a 2022 episode of Call Her Daddy that she and Selena have spoken since she and Justin tied the knot. “If everybody on our side knows what happened, and we’re good, and we can walk away from it with clarity and respect, then that’s fine!” said Mrs. Bieber. “That brought me a lot of peace. WE know what happened. It is what it is. You’re never going to be able to correct every narrative.”