What is going on with Justin Bieber?
Hailey Bieber has had a career-making month after securing a billion-dollar deal to sell her beauty empire and landing a Vogue cover.
But the model and entrepreneur’s recent milestones have only renewed the public’s obsessive interest in Justin Bieber, her husband of seven years and father of their infant, whose erratic behavior and sometimes jaw-dropping online activity have long fueled rumors about his declining health and marriage.
“What’s going on right now with Justin Bieber is not a full-blown crisis, but the early warning system lights are definitely flashing,” said Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of a global PR firm that handles reputation management. “The contrast between them now is glaring and jarring, and that’s why there is so much public discussion about him.”
The Biebers have long dodged and denied allegations of marital and personal turmoil, fueled in part by Justin’s decision to step away from music in 2019 to work on “deep-rooted issues,” his struggles with drug use and concerning live streams from the now gaunt-looking Canadian pop star. His troubling behavior is even the subject of a new TMZ documentary on Hulu.
“Whatever he’s going through, I pray for him and hope he’s OK,” former collaborator Poo Bear, who co-wrote some of his biggest hits, told the Hollywood Reporter last month.
Justin’s team has long denied issues with the Grammy-winner or his marriage, and insight into him is primarily released to the press through anonymous sources. Still, his public behavior, including his posts about Hailey to his 294 million Instagram followers, has fans and PR insiders voicing concern. Teams for both Biebers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, following the news that E.l.f. Beauty acquired Rhode in a deal worth up to $1 billion, Justin posted a two-photo carousel on Instagram to congratulate Hailey and her skin-care company: a photo of his wife leaning over a table and a screenshot of the capture of her Instagram post. The carousel was among a photo dump Justin posted that day, which included a shot of him sitting shirtless next to a bong and another of him groping a smiling Hailey.
“In my professional opinion, I do think this was poorly executed,” said Nabeela Aysen, a New York-based crisis communication expert, referring to Justin’s congratulatory post. “As someone who works in crisis communications, I would’ve loved for his team to review that post before he hit publish.”
Still, the tribute was hailed by some as a moment of growth for Justin, who raised eyebrows last week when he initially celebrated his wife’s Vogue cover by admitting on Instagram that he once told Hailey that she would “never be on the cover of Vogue.”
“The real question here is: where is his team? Are they afraid to push back? Or are they advising him, and he’s just not listening? Hopefully, Hailey and his reps had a conversation with him behind the scenes, and we won’t be seeing more posts like this anytime soon,” Aysen added.
The Grammy-winner’s Wednesday post, however, did nothing to quench the incessant rumor mill that has long plagued his marriage, especially after reports emerged that Hailey celebrated Rhode’s acquisition without Justin.
The Biebers tied the knot in a 2018 civil ceremony, held a 2019 star-studded South Carolina wedding, and renewed their vows last year. At the time, Justin’s career was soaring with four albums, numerous awards and consistently sold-out shows. In contrast, Hailey was a model most recognizable as a Baldwin.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael, a New York clinical psychologist, explained that the power dynamic could have established early roles for the couple as Justin moved away from music and Hailey kick-started her career in beauty.
“Since Justin was a child, that was his identity: to be a wildly successful musician,” Carmichael said. “I would almost be surprised if there were not a certain amount of growing pains as their life changed.”
And the Biebers have been open about those growing pains. In a 2021 interview with GQ, Justin admitted that the “first year of marriage was really tough…because there was a lot, going back to the trauma stuff.”
“There was just lack of trust,” Justin said. “There was all these things that you don’t want to admit to the person that you’re with, because it’s scary. You don’t want to scare them off by saying, ‘I’m scared.’”
A few months later, Hailey admitted to Ellen DeGeneres that she was taking marriage “one day at a time” and “learning a lot.”
Still, the couple continued to deny rumors of a struggling home life, especially after Justin announced in a lengthy 2019 Instagram post that he was stepping away from music to focus on his mental health and marriage.
“I have been looking, seeking, trial and error as most of us do, I am now very focused on repairing some of the deep rooted issues that I have as most of us have, so that I don’t fall apart, so that I can sustain my marriage and be the father I want to be,” Justin said in his post.
Justin released his last album, “Justice,” in March 2021, and that tour was cut short after he suffered temporary facial paralysis. In December 2022, Justin sold his music catalog, which consisted of over 290 titles, in a deal to U.K.-based Hipgnosis Songs Capital, a venture between finance giant Blackstone and Hipgnosis Song Management.
“For Justin, I think that was the motivation: He had ill health and was at a time in his life where he was married and very in love and contemplating family. Making the deal gave him the freedom to focus on that and not have to be on the treadmill he’d been on for almost 15 years,” Merck Mercuriadis, the founder of one of the companies that bought Justin’s catalog, told The Hollywood Reporter in April.
Aysen said that despite Justin’s alleged struggles, his relationship with Hailey “is a lot more layered than what the public sees.”
“Hailey seems to be in a really strong place professionally. She’s building her brand, becoming more visible, and stepping into her own,” she added. “Meanwhile, Justin feels a little lost in this chapter, like he’s still figuring out who he is and where he fits, both personally and creatively.”
In January, Justin set the internet ablaze when he unfollowed Hailey on Instagram and then refollowed her that morning. “Someone went on my account and unfollowed my wife,” he wrote on his Instagram story.
Two months later, Hailey unfollowed Justin for two days. According to Page Six, Hailey claimed it was merely a “glitch” in a TikTok comment. Around the same time, a shirtless Justin went on Instagram Live to begin rapping while his eyelids appeared droopy.
Fans were again analyzing Justin’s moves in April after a video emerged showing him dancing with what appeared to be a blunt in his hand at Coachella, according to People
And earlier this month, Justin shocked fans by joining SZA in a California performance, where he was seen closing his eyes and repeatedly kissing the singer’s hand. At one point, after Justin stopped singing into his mic and leaned forward, SZA cupped his chin in a move that spurred an online debate about whether the move was an emotional interaction between the two artists or a signal of a bigger issue. Later in the performance, SZA also had to point Justin to his mark on stage.
Nierman explained that the public’s ongoing fascination with the Biebers partly stems from the drip of information about their personal life that only comes from social media posts and press exposure.
“The truth is, that’s only a small window of what we know about him and his day-to-day life,” he explained.
The Biebers, who announced last August the birth of their son, Jack Blues, have made it clear recently that their relationship is strong. In the Vogue article, Justin said the “smartest thing I’ve ever done was marry Hailey,” while the model said she follows her husband’s advice on navigating fame.
“He’s been doing this literally since he was a child, and he has had to face the most scrutiny of any person that I know,” she said. “He was, like, ‘Baby, trust me, I’ve been here before many, many times. You’re not going to win. There is no winning.’”
Haily also revealed how the persistent divorce rumors took a toll on her after she gave birth, and discussed her shock at the public’s unrelenting obsession with the couple.
“Well, I thought seven years in it would’ve already, and it hasn’t. You would think after having a child, people would maybe move on, chill out a little bit, but no,” she said.