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What’s goin’ on in the Bieber household?
This week, Daysia dishes on some Justin Bieber news she's seen on her For You page while Hannah is head empty and doesn’t have a fixation but does recommend both Young Royals on Netflix and Black Widow. Plus, new Normani!!!
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Daysia and Hannah
This Week's Fixations
Daysia: Diplo has been cheekily exposing Justin Bieber on TikTok and I’m living for it. About a month ago, he posted a TikTok showing texts allegedly from JB that show the singer curving him in a message four years ago, telling Diplo he got the wrong number. Fast forward to 2021, Justin Bieber, clearly unaware that he’d just admitted to lying about his number, texted Diplo asking about a vocal track he sent over. It is truly cringeworthy.
Diplo got JB back though, posting another TikTok showing himself duping the singer into playing a set at his show. Bieber agreed to play a single song, but ended up playing five before “catching on,” Diplo said. Diplo wrote in the caption “justin bieber will never perform with me again.” Is that a joke? Is it real? Who knows? Some people in the comments think Biebs really missed performing and lost track of time, while others think he was def annoyed. My side of TikTok (filter bubble confirmation bias, I know) seems to think that JB is short-tempered and easily set off.
Why, you ask? For the past few months, it seems like people are suddenly interested in the way Justin seems to mistreat his wife Hailey. It isn’t just the Jelena truthers; it’s random people, tea accounts, and a “body language expert.” I know TikTok is pretty late to the party on this, but I keep seeing this terrible dynamic on my FYP, and I can’t stop thinking about it! When I went to look up Justin Bieber’s account this is literally the first thing that popped up:
I’m not one to care much for the Biebers, but watching videos like this makes me so sad for Hailey. Obviously, we can never know what celebs’ private lives are like, and these clips are clearly hand-selected to prove a point. But there’s an uncomfortable dissonance between the very public devotion they express separately and the tension/neglect shown in some of their videos together. He’s just… so disrespectful to her sometimes, and no one, not even a famously rude celeb, should be treated like that! A lot of the videos are from pre-COVID, so here’s hoping that they’ve worked through some of these issues over the past year. In his latest cover story with GQ in April, he seemed to indicate that their relationship has vastly improved since their first year of marriage (to quote Hailey’s iconic Vogue interview, “The thing is, marriage is very hard.”). However, I’m skeptical, considering the latest clip of him appearing to publicly yell at her from July 9. Woof.
Has Lorde Dropped a new album?
No, but we got the first live performance of “Solar Power” on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert! 35 days y’all!
In the meantime, it’s been nearly two years since “Motivation,” and finally, we got some new Normani!!!!! Listen to pop queen Normani’s new single featuring Cardi B, “Wild Side.”
Too Many Tabs
Zach Baron profiled Jason Sudeikis, talking about Ted Lasso and the past year (including some wise introspection on his uncoupling from Olivia Wilde) for GQ.
Vulture's Craig Jenkins reviewed Vince Staples' eponymous new album, a soundtrack that perfectly fits the tone of a summer post-global disaster.
Allie Jones interviewed Willow Smith for NYLON ahead of her new pop-punk release Lately I Feel Everything, which, to quote Smith, is bound to be "fire."
Plus... new Shakira incoming, Moze is cancelled, Olivia Rodrigo's White House shoes!!, Spike Lee's in a crypto ad?, how the Vietnam episode of Hey Arnold! came to be, and an oral history of that iconic Degrassi "Shark in the Water" promo.