When Selena Gomez and her on-off ex Justin Bieber had their last big Instagram fight in August 2016, reports came out afterwards that she purposely didn't give him her number and they weren't talking. Gomez would go on to date The Weeknd for 10 months before ultimately breaking up with him in October, right after she was spotted hanging with Bieber again.
Bieber and Gomez are back on the road to exclusively dating—kissing in the hockey rink, going on park dates—but the decision to let the Biebs back in was a very conscious one, Gomez tells Billboard in a new interview.
"I'm 25. I'm not 18, or 19, or 20," she says. "I cherish people who have really impacted my life. So maybe before, it could have been forcing something that wasn't right. But that doesn't mean caring for someone ever goes away."
"And [that goes for] people in general," she continues. "I mean, I grew up with Demi [Lovato]. Nick and Joe [Jonas] and Miley [Cyrus]—we've gone through seasons in our lives. I don't think it's as serious as people make things out to be half the time. It's just my life. I grew up with all of these people, and it's so cool to see where everybody is. It comes back to the idea of me remaining full. I think a true representation of love is beyond just yourself. It's me going to get coffee earlier this morning and talking with a woman who was celebrating her birthday and going to Disneyland for the first time. I told her about my favorite things there, and she got excited, and then I got excited because she was excited. The littlest things are impactful."
Gomez also explains that (at least when the interview was conducted) she and her ex The Weeknd are good friends. "Something that I'm really proud of is that there's such a true friendship [between me and The Weeknd]," she says. "I truly have never experienced anything like that in my life. We ended it as best friends, and it was genuinely about encouraging and caring [for each other], and that was pretty remarkable for me." (The Weeknd has since deleted all his Instagrams of Gomez and has unfollowed her, but she has kept her photos of him up.)
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she's not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
