In the interview, Bieber was asked if she felt worried that Sephora shoppers might compare rhode to Rare Beauty, given the fan narrative that there’s an unspoken “rivalry” between her and Gomez. And, although her publicist asked to skip the question, Bieber decided to graciously address the chatter with a simple but effective answer.
“It’s always annoying being pitted against other people. I didn’t ask for that,” she responded. “When people want to see you a certain way and they’ve made up a story about you in their minds, it’s not up to you to change that.”
Bieber was also asked if she felt “competitive,” seeing as her rhode products will “have to stand up against other Sephora brands,” and she also found a perfectly courteous response: “I think there is space for everybody.”
This isn’t the first time that Bieber has spoken out against fan narratives that pit Gomez and herself against each other. In 2022, the duo posed and hugged together to prove there was no bad blood between them. Then, in 2023, Bieber opened up about the situation and said the “feud” rumors stemmed from “completely made-up and twisted and perpetuated narratives.”
Earlier that same year, both Bieber and Gomez put out statements defending each other and calling out fans for spewing hate online. “I want to thank Selena for speaking out, as her and I have been discussing the last few weeks how to move past this ongoing narrative between her and I,” Bieber wrote at the time, though that did not stop online discourse from escalating in the years since.
