Working on their relationship. After tying the knot in 2018, Justin Bieber and Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) have opened up about the ups and downs in their relationship amid the major life change.
“The first year of marriage was really tough because there was a lot going back to the trauma. There was just a lack of trust,” Justin revealed during an interview with GQ in April 2021. “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.’”
The “Peaches” singer was originally linked to Hailey from 2015 to 2016. Following their split, the Canada native briefly rekindled his romance with on and off ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez before calling it quits for good in 2018.
Later that year, Justin and Hailey got engaged weeks after deciding to give their relationship another try. The couple exchanged vows in a New York City courthouse in September 2018. One year later, they celebrated their union with a larger ceremony in South Carolina.
After their nuptials, the Arizona native addressed what led to the pair’s initial breakup. “Negative things happened that we still need to talk about and work through,” Hailey told Vogue during a joint interview in March 2019. “Fizzled would not be the right word — it was more like a very dramatic excommunication. There was a period where if I walked into a room, he would walk out.”
Hailey noted that reuniting years later allowed for them to work through their issues, adding, “The common denominator, I promise you, is always church. By then we were past the drama. I just gave him a hug.”
The media personality later elaborated on the challenges that came amid Justin’s journey to sobriety. For Hailey, Justin’s experience triggered her history with dad Stephen Baldwin‘s addiction.
“I remember I called (my mom) a few different times, one particular time [when] we were in Brooklyn and I was calling her, crying, and I was like, ‘I just can’t do it. There’s no way that I’m going to be able to do this if it’s going to be like this forever,’” she explained during an episode of the “In Good Faith with Chelsea & Judah Smith” podcast in November 2021. “And I just remember she was so calm on the phone and she was like, ‘It’s going to pass, you’re going to be fine and he’s going to be healthy and we’re here for you.’”
Hailey added: “But I also just think I was in it. I made a decision. I know for a fact that I’ve loved this person for a very long time and now would not be the time to give up on him. I just wouldn’t do that to him.”
At the time, the socialite recalled her decision to stand at her husband’s side no matter the obstacles they may face. “Imagine abandoning somebody in the middle of the worst time of their life, potentially. I’m not that type of a person,” she continued. “So I was going to stick it out no matter what the outcome was going to be. It was really hard. There were days where I literally was like, ‘I don’t know if he’s going to be OK.’ Something really deep down inside of me was like, ‘He’s going to be through it.’ I just didn’t know how long it was going to take.”
Justin, for his part, detailed the lesson he learned about not expecting his marriage to heal his internal issues. “It’s a journey. I remember when I first got married, I hit a little bit of an emotional breakdown because I thought marriage was going to fix all my problems and it didn’t,” the “Sorry” singer told Apple Music’s Ebro Darden in May 2022. “It just kind of was a reflection of like, ‘Man, you’re a bit of a hypocrite, man.’”
Scroll down for everything Hailey and Justin have said about their journey as a married couple: