“I feel like a big sister now”: When Selena Gomez spoke about her dynamic with Justin Bieber before they started dating

Singers Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber’s relationship continues to make headlines even today, years after the two called it quits.

The star duo met in 2009 when the former was 18 and the latter was 16, and both had categorically denied being romantically involved before officially confirming their relationship in May 2011.

Justin had admitted in an interview that Selena Gomez was his celebrity crush, while Selena stated during several interactions that Justin was more like a younger brother to her. In a conversation with MTV News in December 2010, Gomez said Justin is a “good kid,” adding:

“I feel like a big sister now, ’cause I want to protect him…So I’m always very cautious with him, but he is so talented and he’s so sweet, so that just started us wanting to work together. Now he’s just become one of my good friends.”

Selena Gomez said that Justin Bieber was “like my little brother” before the two made their relationship official

While appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2011, the Rare beauty mogul said that she was introduced to Justin when his manager Scooter Braun had called up her mom who was her manager. Even though there were several dating rumours about them, they denied these rumors for the longest time, stating that things were merely platonic.

Even after being spotted kissing on a yacht in the Caribbean and walking the red carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscars party in 2011, Selena Gomez continued denying the relationship rumors. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2010, she said:

“He’s little! He’s like my little brother. That’s weird to me.”

Selena Gomez confirmed her relationship with Bieber during a 2011 interview for Seventeen magazine

The duo dated on and off from 2010 until 2018, making their relationship official in 2011. In May 2011, Selena Gomez confirmed her relationship with Justin Bieber in an interview with Seventeen magazine:

“I don’t like hiding. I do like to keep certain things to myself, but at the end of the day, I’m 18 and I’m going to fall in love…I’m going to hang out with people and I’m going to explore myself, and I’m OK with that.”

Bieber also confessed that he likes noticing the “little things” that the Rare singer does. The Stay singer also revealed that he wasn’t “ashamed” of dating her and is no longer willing to hide their relationship. In an interview with Complex in 2015, Justin said they were completely in love and “Nothing else mattered”, and that their relationship was a “marriage” kind of a thing.

Gomez and Bieber’s relationship became rocky around 2012

The couple hit a rough patch in their relationship and split in 2012, before getting back together again in 2013 – a pattern that would continue until 2018 when Bieber married model Hailey Baldwin, his current wife.

In January 2016, Selena Gomez told Rolling Stone that she was “so beyond done talking about her ex,” when the latter started dating Sofia Richie in August 2016. The ex couple was also briefly involved in a twitter war where Justin accused her of dating him to get “attention,” while Selena accused him of “cheating” on her multiple times.

The couple hit a rough patch in their relationship and split in 2012, before getting back together again in 2013 – a pattern that would continue until 2018 when Bieber married model Hailey Baldwin, his current wife.

In January 2016, Selena Gomez told Rolling Stone that she was “so beyond done talking about her ex,” when the latter started dating Sofia Richie in August 2016. The ex couple was also briefly involved in a twitter war where Justin accused her of dating him to get “attention,” while Selena accused him of “cheating” on her multiple times.

Selena and Justin now

When in 2022, Tiktoker @donttellmymomma.fr said that the American songstress was “always skinny” when she dated Justin, Selena retaliated by saying he prefers “models.”

There was also some social media shading involved when Justin’s wife Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner got on Tiktok in February this year to lip sync to the audio “And I’m not saying she deserved it, but I’m saying god’s timing is always right.”

This was followed by fan speculation that Kylie and Hailey shaded Selena’s eyebrows in their Tiktoks, as Selena herself had posted a series of Instagram stories earlier on. In one of these stories, she reportedly said:

“I laminated my brows too much.”

The next day, both Gomez and Jenner cleared the air, with the latter saying that she was not throwing shade on the former’s eyebrows and had not even noticed them.

On March 24, Selena Gomez addressed her fans on her Instagram story, asking them to stop sending Hailey death threats, saying that the latter approached her personally regarding the matter and called an end to the supposed feud.

Recently, Justin Bieber was seen with his wife, happily supporting her during the launch of Rhode in the UK.