Selena Gomez’s My Mind & Me Apple TV+ documentary premieres Friday (November 4), and a new Vulture profile dives into the doc’s intimate and excruciatingly vulnerable subject matter — a lupus diagnosis, a kidney transplant, a McLean Hospital stay that led to a bipolar diagnosis, the crushing weight of celebrity on her mental health, and even more. At the end of the thought-provoking interview with Gomez and My Mind & Me director Alek Keshishian, one question still needed to be asked.
“I also wanted to ask — that recent photo released of you and Hailey Bieber felt full circle. What was the story behind it? I thought it was powerful of you guys to publicly be like, ‘We’re moving on,’” writer Rachel Handler asked.
Gomez didn’t mince words: “Yeah, it’s not a big deal. It’s not even a thing.”
The photo in question was taken last month at the 2nd Annual Academy Of Motion Pictures Gala in Los Angeles. Photographer Tyrell Hampton captioned it, “plot twist.”
Bieber and Gomez’s photo came on the heels of Bieber opening up on the September 27 episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast about the public’s misconceptions over the timeline of her relationship with her husband of four years, Justin Bieber, and his involvement with Gomez. The model and Rhode founder was asked if she and Gomez had “ever [been] with Justin romantically at the same time.” Bieber said, “No, not one time,” and went on to set the record straight about what happened (and didn’t happen) in 2018 when she reconnected with Bieber and swiftly got engaged. (Bieber had been linked to Gomez earlier in the year.)
“The timeline also that I think sometimes is in question of us getting back together and getting engaged and him having been spending time with his ex before that … I understand, again, how it looks from the outside, and there’s a lot of perception there, but that was a situation where I know for a fact that it was the right thing for them to close that door,” Bieber told Cooper. “They were not in a relationship at that time. But of course, there’s a very long history there. It’s not my relationship. It has nothing to do with me, so I respect that a lot, but I know that it closed a chapter. I think it was the best thing that could have happened for him to move on and be engaged and get married and move on with his life in that way.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Bieber discussed the online harassment she faces because of her high-profile relationship, Gomez’s fans taunting her at this year’s Met Gala, and she expressed an utmost respect for Gomez. “[Gomez] doesn’t owe me anything. Neither of us owe anybody anything, except respect. I respect her a lot,” she said. Bieber also noted that she has communicated in some way with Gomez since her 2018 marriage, and “that’s why I’m like, it’s all respect. It’s all love. That’s also why I feel like, well, if everybody on our side knows what happened and we’re good and we could walk away from it with clarity and respect, then that’s fine.”
Watch the My Mind & Me trailer above, and read Gomez’s full interview with Vulture here.