Followers still not letting go of Eyebrow-gate feud even after Bieber, Gomez weigh in

Hailey Bieber thanked Selena Gomez for “speaking out” against the contrived feud consuming their online following since February, adding that the two have been discussing “how to move past this ongoing narrative.”

That “narrative” has everything to do with the escalating hostility between the two beauty moguls’ fans after Bieber apparently dissed the “My Mind & Me” singer in February — just months after their years-long tensions appeared to be over.

Bieber’s most pointed response yet came late Friday after Gomez revealed that Bieber had been receiving death threats in the wake of the contrived Eyebrow-gate debacle.

“This isn’t what I stand for. No one should have to experience hate or bullying,” the “Only Murders in the Building” star wrote on her Instagram. “I’ve always advocated for kindness and really want this all to stop.”

Hours later, Bieber followed with her own Instagram story addressing the “hateful negativity” pummeling over the last month and warning against the pitfalls of social media.

“The last few weeks have been very hard for everyone involved and millions of people are seeing so much hate around this which is extremely harmful,” Bieber wrote in the online statement. “While social media is an incredible way to connect and built community, moments like this only create extreme division instead of bringing people together.”

The 26-year-old influencer appeared to be referring to the the tenuous and coincidental connections hers and Gomez’s followers made when she created a post that seemingly made fun of Gomez’s overly laminated eyebrows. Fan theories borne out of the perceived diss flooded the Internet, and a glut of Eyebrow-gate explainers from legacy media outlets, style and gossip blogs and TikTok creators ran wild.

It should be noted that Gomez, 30, is the most followed woman on Instagram with a 405 million followers (many of whom lost it over the weekend when she shared a photo in which she had blond hair and wore a bikini on the platform. Bieber was among the 19 million accounts who liked Gomez’s Sunday post).

Still, Bieber’s Instagram following — currently at 49.5 million — has fluctuated during the purported scandal with the Rhode Beauty founder reportedly losing a million followers amid the debacle. BuzzFeed declared “The End of the Hailey Bieber Icon Era” among Gen Z. And others rebranded the once untouchable It Girl as a “mean girl.” The animosity spilled over from the digital domain to the real world in early March when Bieber’s husband, Justin Bieber, who previously dated Gomez, faced an audience chanting against his wife during his Rolling Loud performance in Inglewood.

“Things can always be taken out of context or construed differently than they were intended. We all need to be more thoughtful about what we post and what we say, including myself,” Hailey Bieber wrote Friday. “In the end, I believe love will always be bigger than hate and negativity, and there is always an opportunity to meet each other with more empathy and compassion.”

But followers haven’t let the theoretical feud go, still posting about it in the comments section of Bieber’s subsequent and unrelated grid posts, insisting that she isn’t actually apologizing for the alleged insult or accusing her of trying to play the victim.

“Stop bullying!!!!!” wrote one Instagram commenter, while another added “Just apologize in public so we can move on!”

“YEAH it’s better but she needs to stop shading ppl and then be shocked and play victim when confronted,” a different user wrote.

“I love how everyone wanted to bully Hailey Bieber because they’re ‘against bullying,’” observed another user.

A third beauty mogul — reality star and Kylie Cosmetics founder Kylie Jenner — has also been involved in the contrived feud but summarily shut down the brouhaha with this early February TikTok comment: “this is reaching.”