Entertainment

Selena Gomez Hinted Her Soon-To-Be-Released Song Is All About Justin Bieber

by Jessica Wang
Theo Wargo/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

After a series of cryptic Instagram posts, Selena Gomez confirmed she's got new music on the way. More so, the lyrics she teased seemingly reference her on-again, off-again relationship with ex-boyfreind Justin Bieber. Gomez, who's taken some time away from music in the last few years, announced her new single, “Lose You to Love Me,” drops next Wednesday, while also hinting it may be one of her most personal yet.

In one IG post on Thursday, the “Wolves” singer shared a short clip of a marquee movie sign that read, “I saw the signs and I ignored it,” and tagged Spotify. The following day, she shared a throwback baby photo captioned, “I gave my all and they all know it.” Finally, in a third post, she shared a black-and-white photo of the new single's artwork with the caption, “I needed to lose you to love me.”

Tying together those clues, the lyrics could be a nod to her tumultuous relationship with Bieber, since they're about giving her "all" to a situation that ultimately didn't work out. Bieber and Gomez were first linked in January 2011 and called it quits in November 2012, but continued to fuel dating rumors on and off until 2015 — and then again in 2017 following Gomez’s split from The Weeknd. The last time the two were romantically linked was in March 2018, when Gomez wished Bieber a happy birthday on Instagram. Several months later in June, Bieber began a relationship with Hailey Baldwin, whom he married for the first time in September 2018 and again a year later.

Prior to his second wedding ceremony, Bieber opened up about not treating women well in a lengthy post tied to his mental health. In the September message, Bieber addressed the toll of becoming a pop star at a young age. “I started doing pretty heavy drugs at 19 and abused all of my relationships,” he wrote. “I became resentful, disrespectful to women, and angry. I became distant to everyone who loved me.”

While Bieber's own words add more fuel to the idea that Gomez’s new song could be about their notoriously messy teen romance, she previously mentioned she did find "closure in a very good, healthy way." She told Refinery29 in 2015, “At this point, there is no anger… I'm always encouraging and I am proud of his journey. I think people are making it out to be something that is more tragic than it really was. We grew up together. We both made mistakes. That's it."

Gomez revealed in June that she'd completed her new album, a followup to 2015’s Revival, during an appearance on The Tonight Show. "I have to do, like, a few finishing things with it, but I'm just relieved," she told Jimmy Fallon. "It took me four years now to even feel at a good place with this album."

Based on her closure quote about Bieber, it sounds like Gomez reached a "good place" with him, too, but fans will have to wait and see whether she channeled their roller-coaster relationship into her new music.