Entertainment

Is Selena Gomez's New Video About Bieber?

by Emily Lackey

If Selena Gomez does one thing well, it’s dispelling rumors like a pro. That’s why, when Gomez's video for “Same Old Love” was released on Tuesday, I wasn’t surprised to see that the video was incredibly vague about its subject matter — as in, who it's about. After all the speculation that arose when the song was released about whether or not it was about her relationships with Justin Bieber, the video makes one thing abundantly clear: Gomez is not about adding fuel to those rumor fires.

Still, even though the video highlights a number of romantic relationships gone awry — for most of it, Gomez herself is the observer to other people’s relationships as she drives down a late night street — there are a number of shots that seem to directly refer to her relationship with ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. Could it be that her former relationship with Bieber is what's really at the hidden heart of this song and this video?

For instance: There’s definitely one scene that seems like it could be a reference, and that is a scene where Gomez goes into a club by herself and focuses on a very tatted-up guy dancing and getting awfully touchy-feely with another girl. Their faces are never shown, but the man's body shape and the focus on his tattooed arms definitely suggests Bieber — even if it doesn’t label him as Bieber in any other way.

And then, there is the scene where a number of girls are running to meet a car that is pulling up to the club. The girls storm the vehicle and surround it, jumping over each other and banging on the windows to get the attention of whomever is inside. Sure, the car could be Gomez’s — but considering she just got out of hers and sent her driver on his way, I’m assuming that the scene is more about what she probably dealt with on a daily basis as the girlfriend of Bieber.

But, that’s all we get by way of hints that the video has anything to do with Gomez’s relationship with Bieber. Other than that, the video is contemplative, dark look at where relationships go wrong and how people can get fed up after too much of the same thing.

I mean maybe it has nothing to do with Bieber at all — it seems much more likely that the video is really just about failed relationships, and love gone wrong. But, on the other hand, Biebz has been pretty obvious with his references to Gomez in his recent work — maybe she was repaying the favor?