Selena Gomez has opened up about her relationship with Justin Bieber in a new interview, stating she feels she was ‘a victim to certain abuse’ and has had to find a way to understand emotional abuse as an adult.
Her comments came during an interview with NPR, where Gomez was asked whether her relationship with Justin Bieber was one of the harder parts of her life in the last few years. ‘No, because I've found the strength in it,’ she told the publication. It's dangerous to stay in a victim mentality. And I'm not being disrespectful, I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse.’
When asked if she means emotional abuse, Gomez clarified ‘Yes, and I think that it's something that — I had to find a way to understand it as an adult. And I had to understand the choices I was making.’
Going on to state she doesn’t want to spend the ‘rest of her life talking about this’, she said she now feels the strongest she’s ever felt and has found a way to ‘walk through it with as much grace as possible’. Bieber is yet to comment on the allegations, but her comments have opened up a vital conversation about the spectrum of emotional abuse.
Because this is a relationship we have publicly seen fall apart and come back together over the years – littered with cheating allegations and public fallout - it would not be a stretch to assume that toxic behaviours were displayed during these incidents of betrayal and break-up.
Emotional abuse exists on a spectrum that includes ‘criticism, undermining and being given the silent treatment’. In other words, 'gaslighting' and lying is symptomatic of this kind of abuse. So, while it may be shocking to hear Gomez accuse Bieber of abuse publicly, when you consider the range of behaviours that encompass emotional abuse and look at how their relationship played out in public, perhaps it shouldn’t be.
In fact, it is a vital conversation we need to have when we consider what we should regard as ‘normal’ in a relationship. Where once we might have deemed blazing rows, say, or sarcastic comments as merely part of the ups and downs of a relationship, maybe now we should step back and understand just how toxic these kinds of behaviour can be.
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