Justin Bieber just performed the social media equivalent of showing up uninvited to your ex’s engagement party wearing a shirt that says “I’m fine.” The pop star who once crooned about never saying never has weaponized Gollum from “Lord of the Rings” in what fans perceive as a digital drive-by directed at former flame Selena Gomez.
The meme in question—featuring the ring-obsessed creature captioned “Girls on social media when they get engaged”—appeared on Bieber’s Instagram Story on April 2, 2025, as reported by SoapCentral and KISS 95-7. The timing raised eyebrows, coming shortly after Gomez’s December engagement announcement where she captioned her ring photo “forever begins now..” according to her verified Instagram account.
Gomez and Bieber‘s relationship history reads similar to a Netflix series that ran three seasons too long. Their on-again-off-again saga finally wrapped in 2018, with Bieber marrying Hailey Baldwin mere months later. (Remember when your high school boyfriend found his “forever” two weeks after your breakup? Yeah, that energy.)
The plot thickened when Gomez and Blanco released their joint album coinciding with the meme posting. While their new music reportedly contains references to past relationships, no verified lyrics directly addressing Bieber have been confirmed by official sources. The track titles alone, however, have sent fans into detective mode, analyzing potential subliminal messages.
No celebrity battlefield would be complete without armies of online soldiers. “I think he’s just having a midlife crisis…” wrote one user on X, while another commented, “if I were Hailey I would’ve divorced him…”. Fans have appointed themselves digital archaeologists, excavating layers of meaning from single emoji choices.
Meanwhile, Hailey Bieber maintains a notable absence from the conversation on social media, focusing instead on her recent ventures rather than engaging in the speculation. The couple reportedly welcomed their first child in 2024, though the child’s name has not been officially confirmed by either parent. Gomez similarly refuses to acknowledge the drama directly—a power move straight from the celebrity playbook titled “Let Them Talk While You Cash Checks.”
The spectacle reveals how celebrity relationships never truly die in the digital age. Just look at the 20 worst cheaters in music history. They just decompose publicly, occasionally reanimating when engagement rings or shady memes enter the picture. Seven years later, we’re still watching these two orbit each other across the internet, proving some celebrity gravitational fields never fully weaken.
Perhaps the most precious thing isn’t the ring at all, but the attention economy that keeps both stars trending whenever they share digital oxygen. In Hollywood’s strange ecosystem, even expired relationships remain renewable resources.
