For a couple famously protective of their private life, Justin and Hailey Bieber have, over the past week, been weirdly chatty. First came Hailey’s US Vogue cover, where the model and Rhode founder opened up about the “scary” and traumatic birth of their first child, Jack Blues Bieber, and the postpartum haemorrhage that nearly cost her life. It was big news served with raw vulnerability and certainly worth some time in the spotlight for the often-harassed Hailey.
But then Justin strolls into her spotlight and manages somehow to make her moment all about him. In a shocking Instagram post the baby-faced Bieber decided to use her pivotal moment to reflect on the time he told his wife she’d NEVER be on the cover of Vogue. Yes, seriously.
“Yo this reminds me when Hailey and I got into a huge fight,” he wrote on Instagram. “I told hails that she would never be on the cover of vogue, Yikes I know, so mean. For some reason because I felt so disrespected; I thought I gotta get even..
“I think as we mature we realize that we’re not helping anything by getting even; we’re honestly just prolonging what we really want which is intimacy and connection. So baby u already know but forgive me for saying u wouldn’t get a vogue cover cuz clearly i was sadly mistaken.”
WTAF?
The Art of Making It About You
So much to unpack. But let’s be clear: as a result of his ill-timed post Hailey was stripped of the one time she truly deserved to be the main character in her own story. After all she had only just shared her near-death experience with the world.
Intended as a mea culpa, his post was instead called out as self-serving and emotionally tone-deaf. “He could’ve just let her have the moment,” one user wrote. “Now the headlines are about him.”
It’s not that Justin’s post was inherently evil, nor emotionally manipulative (well, not on purpose). But was it actually necessary? Absolutely not. This is what happens when men confuse vulnerability with PR. Somewhere between “I’m so proud of my wife” and “I once negged her into greatness,” Justin Bieber served up the spiritual equivalent of stepping into the frame during someone else’s solo.
Male Apologies Are Performance Art Now
This is part of a broader phenomenon we’ll call: The Public Male Apology. It’s not about the woman. It’s about his growth. It’s not “I’m sorry I hurt you,” it’s “Look at how evolved I am now for acknowledging that I hurt you — back then, when I was a different guy, obviously.” There’s always a deleted post, always a second draft, and always a moment when the woman in question is quietly shoved out of her spotlight so her man can get through his TED Talk.
The caption was quietly replaced with a string of emojis: 🤷🫵🏻🫶🏼🥹. Which is basically the male version of “Sorry you were offended.”
The Biebers’ New Reality Era
Still, there’s something painfully real about all of it. Justin didn’t say the right thing, but he said a very human thing — and humans are often kind of cringe. Hailey, meanwhile, has been reborn, quite literally. “You’re not the same person you were before,” she said. And she’s not. She’s someone who survived giving birth, who owns a skincare empire, and who managed to look ethereal on Vogue while talking about haemorrhaging. If that’s not main character energy, I don’t know what is.
Their dynamic isn’t aspirational anymore. It’s not curated or cute. It’s messy. It’s patchy. It’s them, trying to figure out how to be two people in a relationship where one nearly died and the other’s still learning how to hand over the mic.
So yes, Justin stepped on her moment. But maybe that’s what real love looks like sometimes: ugly, unfiltered, and shared with us all via emoji.
