It is one of Hollywood's longest standing reported rivalries, but now Hailey Bieber insists there is mutual "respect" between her and her husband's ex Selena Gomez.
For years, speculation has been rife Hailey 'stole' chart-topper Justin Bieber from his childhood lover Selena, but now the 25-year-old model has finally addressed the rumours.
Justin and Selena officially called it quits in July 2018 and just months later, Hailey and Justin's relationship had snowballed, and the pair married in September of that year.
Speaking in a bombshell interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast on Spotify, Hailey finally put the rumours to bed.
"When [Justin] and I started hooking up, he was never in a relationship, at any point," she clarified.
Hailey added: "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 and I never was."
"I understand how it looks from the outside," she explained to host Alex Cooper before revealing that she and Selena share mutual respect.
She added: "[Selena] doesn’t owe me anything, neither of us owe each other anything except respect. I respect her a lot. I respect her, there's no drama personally."
Justin and Selena are thought to have been official around three times – he was first official with Hailey in 2016 and are thought to have split at some point between then and 2018.
Despite the confusion, Hailey insists she never got with Justin in a romantic way while he was seeing someone else, namely Selena.
And Hailey confessed she had spoken with Selena after tying the knot with Justin in 2018.
She added: "So that's why I'm like 'it’s all respect, it's all love' it'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 that's fine. We know what happened, it is what it is."
Discussing the confusion some fans have over the timing, Hailey said: "The timeline also sometimes in question is us getting back together and getting engaged and him having spent some time with his ex before that.
"I've literally never talked about this ever. I understand how it looks from the outside, but that was a situation where I know for a fact that it was the right thing for them to close that door, they were not in a relationship at that time, but of course, there's a very long history there.
"It's not my relationship, it has nothing to do with me, so I respect that a lot, but I know it closed a chapter and I think it was the best thing that could have happened for him to move on and be engaged and get married and move on with his life.
"I just know what was going on when we got back together and I know what had to happen for that to come back together in a healthy way and I think it was the most mature decision that he could have made.
"I know for a fact that the reason we were able to get back together was because it was very much completely closed."
