They broke up and reunited three times over the span of 8 years.

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It’s a love story that makes the rounds every so often. If you’re trying to keep up with the supposed Hailey, Selena and Justin drama, you might be wondering why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up? 

The “Stay” singer and The “Love You Like a Love Song” artist were teenage couple goals back in the day. Even before the two started dating, Selena gushed over Justin’s talent and personality when they first met when she was 18 and he was 16. “I love Justin. When he first started to come over from Canada, his manager contacted me and he just said that he would like to meet me and he was just such a good kid,” Selena told MTV back in 2010. And 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.” The on-and-off love birds made things official around September 2010 and made things public in February 2011 when they walked down the red carpet of the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They later broke up in November 2012 due to their crazy schedules. They briefly reunited in 2014 but called it quits later that year. From back-and-forth spats and dating other people, the couple eventually reunited in 2017 after being spotted on a bike ride together and publicly sharing each other on social media. 

The relationship evolved and they became a household couple name. However, as things started to unravel more and more details of their relationship started to spill, “Jelena” started to fall apart right before our eyes in 2018. The prospects of them reuniting a fourth time ended when Justin proposed to Hailey Baldwin in 2018.

So why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up all those different times? Read more below to find out.

Why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up the first time?

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Why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up the first time? Justin and Selena broke up for the first time in November 2012. “She broke up with him about a week ago,” a source told People at the time. “With them being apart so much it got complicated. She had some trust issues. It’s not easy, but the relationship needed to end.” The couple was spotted having dinner days later but nothing came out of it.

Before their first split, the two seemed to shy away from the press about their relationship but started embracing their relationship once they started doing couple activities together. Justin even rented out Staples Center (now known as Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles for a romantic private dinner with Selena. “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,” Selena told Seventeen at the time. “I’m going to hang out with people and I’m going to explore myself, and I’m okay with that.”

The couple briefly reunited when Selena was seen flying to Oslo, Norway to see Justin in concert. Justin said that the breakup affected him immensely, “[The breakup] affected us, especially when we are in front of so many people,” he said in an interview with Big Boy revealing that his song “All That Matters” was written while working through the breakup. “It’s such a public thing. It’s just hard for the both of us. But you know, she’s a great woman. I love her [to] this day.”

Why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up the second time?

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Why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up the second time? Justin and Selena broke up for the second time in late 2014 after reuniting earlier that year. The Wizards of Waverly Place alum confirmed the breakup when she talked about her song “The Heart Wants What It Wants.” “When I was on stage and I was thinking of…I know him though, and I know that I know his heart, and I know what he wouldn’t do to hurt me. But I didn’t realize that I’m feeling so confident and feeling so great about myself and then it [can] just be completely shattered by one thing. By something so stupid. But then you make me feel crazy, you make me feel like it’s my fault. I was in pain.” She also confirmed that Justin “has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need to hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.”

“We were so in love. Nothing else mattered,” he explained of the pair’s early relationship. “We were all about each other. But when it’s like that and you get your value from that, people will always disappoint you.” Justin talked about how the relationship in a Complex cover profile, “I learned a lot. I moved in with my girlfriend [Selena] when I was 18. Started my own life with her. It was a marriage kind of thing. Living with a girl, it was just too much at that age,” he explained. “When stuff would happen, I would lose my freakin’ mind, and she would lose her mind, and we would fight so hard because we were so invested in each other. Love is a choice. Love is not a feeling. People have made it seem in movies that it’s this fairy tale.”

In November 2015, the “Baby” artist talked about how he’ll still love Selena no matter what. “[She] is someone I love dearly,” he tells Access Hollywood. “I’m never going to stop loving her. I’m never going to stop checking in on her. I don’t think if you end a relationship, you should end that, unless it was super toxic and you guys were hurting each other physically or mentally. We always respected each other and we still respect each other.”

He told Ellen DeGeneres maybe they’d get back together. “I mean we have a lot of history together so I’m sure—I mean, it possibly could happen. But I think we’re both just on our own journeys of just figuring ourselves out and I think maybe once we figure ourselves out we can come together and make an awesome duo or you know, she’ll find someone awesome; I’ll find someone awesome. I just want her to be happy, honestly.”

Justin later linked up with Hailey Baldwin for the first time in New Years, but they broke up months later. In between the span of their second breakup and their third reunion, Selena dated DJ and musician Zedd and The Weeknd. However, there was some drama when Justin started dating Sofia Richie.

People reported that she commented on Justin’s Instagram post of the supposed couple with the following: “If you can’t handle the hate, then stop posting pictures of your girlfriend lol- It should be special between you two only,” she wrote. “Don’t be mad at your fans. They love you and supported you before any one ever did.” Justin reportedly responded, “It’s funny to see people that used me for attention and still try to point the finger this way,” he wrote. “Sad. All love.”He later added another comment, noting, “I’m not one for anyone receiving hate. Hope u can all be kind to my friends and eachother. And yes I love my beliebers.”

Why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up the final time?

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Why did Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break up the final time? The on-and-off couple decided to have one last go from 2017 to 2018, but it seemed like things didn’t work out at the end of it. According to E! News, “they were having a lot of little disagreements recently and one fight, in particular, blew up and caused them to decide to ‘break up,’ however, they’ve been in contact the entire time and their feelings for each other have not changed. Selena realized even though he’s made some positive improvements, they just aren’t a perfect match right now,” More sources concurred, “Selena started seeing the bigger picture when it came to their relationship, like what was more important: her general happiness and her family and friends approval, or her being together with Justin, where no one really supported their relationship,” a source told Us Weekly.

Two months later after it went public, Justin reunited with Hailey and eventually proposed to her in the Bahamas. “Was gonna wait a while to say anything but word travels fast, listen plain and simple Hailey I am soooo in love with everything about you! So committed to spending my life getting to know every single part of you loving you patiently and kindly.” They married in a courthouse wedding in September 2018, just four months after reuniting and two months after announcing their engagement. A year later, they celebrated their love again at their second wedding in South Carolina.”

In a conversation with Call Her Daddy’s Alexandra Cooper in September 2022, Hailey talked about how she and Selena are on amicable terms. “I respect her, there’s no drama personally,” she said. “That’s why I’m like, it’s all respect. It’s all love. That’s also why I feel like if everybody on our side knows what happened and we’re good and we could walk away from it with clarity and respect, then, like, that’s fine.” She then explained how the three of them talked about their relationships and it brought a clearer understanding from all sides, saying it gave her “a lot of peace” and that the three of them “know what happened.” “It is what it is,” she said. “You’re never going to be able to correct every narrative and there’s gonna be new ones that come. It’s never gonna end and that’s why I get to the point — that’s why I didn’t speak about a lot of this stuff.”

On whether she hooked up with Justin while he was dating Selena, Hailey put those rumors to rest. “No, not one time,” she clarified. “When him and I ever started, like, hooking up or like anything of that sort, he was not ever in a relationship — ever, at any point. … It’s not my character to mess with someone’s relationship, I would just never do that. I was raised better than that. I’m not interested in doing that.” She continued, “I think that there are situations where you can still kind of have, like, back and forth with someone, but even that was not the situation. I can say, period, point blank: I was never with him when he was in a relationship with anybody. That’s the end of it. And I had been involved with him since I was 18.”

Selena later reflected on her relationship with Justin in her documentary My Mind & Me. “Everything was so public,” the Only Murders in the Building star said in the doc. “I felt haunted by a past relationship that no one wanted to let go of. Then I just moved past it, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

“I feel like I had to go through the worst possible heartbreak ever and then just forgetting everything at the drop of the hand, it was really confusing. But I just think that needed to happen and ultimately it was the best thing that ever happened to me.” She also revealed that the song “Lose You to Love Me” was directly inspired by her final breakup. “I text Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter and said, ‘I think I’m ready to just say I’m sad,’” she said, referring to her co-writers on the 2019 track. “We wrote the song in 45 minutes. The fastest song I’ve ever written.”