Hailey Baldwin opens up about cyberbullying she’s faced since marrying Justin Bieber

Model says thought of opening Twitter ‘gives me such bad anxiety that I feel like I’m gonna throw up’

Chelsea Ritschel
New York
Friday 02 April 2021 11:30 BST
Comments
Hailey Baldwin opens up about being victim of cyberbullying

Hailey Baldwin has opened up about the online bullying she faced after marrying Justin Bieber and why she eventually decided to delete her Twitter account.

The 24-year-old spoke candidly about her experience being the target of cyberbullying during an episode of her new YouTube channel, where she was joined by psychologist Jessica Clemons.

During the episode, released Wednesday, the model, who married Bieber in 2018, revealed that “after getting married especially,” she found herself opened up to “this kind of new level of attention”.

According to Baldwin, one of things she found most difficult about the bullying was the “comparison aspect,” telling Clemons: “I think one of the biggest things I struggled with for sure was the comparison aspect of body comparison and looks comparison and behaviour comparison.

“I think when you’re going through a situation where you just have so many people hounding you with the same thing over and over and over again, it starts to mess with your mind and then you start to question everything and you’re like: ‘Is there something that I’m not seeing that they see?’”

Read more:

Although Baldwin did not explicitly state that the cyberbullying comparisons were to Bieber’s former girlfriend Selena Gomez, the Peaches singer has previously defended his wife from fans who have compared the two women.

In December, the 27-year-old addressed a fan who encouraged people to flood Baldwin’s Instagram Live with comments about how “Selena is better,” writing at the time: “This sad excuse of a human just encouraged people on video to literally go after my wife telling people to say that my previous relationship was better so on and so forth. I just wanted to share this so people get an idea of what we face on a day-to-day.”

According to Baldwin, the bullying has been so severe that she decided to delete her Twitter account because it gave her “such bad anxiety”.

“I don’t even have a Twitter anymore because there was never really a time where I would go on there and it didn’t feel like it was a very toxic environment,” she recalled. “The thought of even opening the app gives me such bad anxiety that I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

The model also said that she has taken other steps to protect her mental health from social media, revealing that she doesn’t go on Instagram Monday through Friday and limits who can comment on her posts to just people she follows.

Elsewhere in the video, Baldwin praised her husband for his support and guidance, explaining that Bieber has helped her “so much” and that she “has to give him credit because he’s been doing this so much longer at this really massive level”.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in