Celeb goss 8th February 2019 by Valerie Loftus
8 Things We Learned About Justin And Hailey Bieber’s Marriage From That Vogue Interview
Including the fact that Justin had been celibate for over a year before they married.
So, in case you didn’t already know, Justin and Hailey Bieber are on the cover of US Vogue this month. Look, after Kimye graced the cover shortly before their wedding in 2014, all bets were off on who Anna Wintour deemed cover-worthy.
They look clean (noteworthy in Justin’s case) and blissfully happy:
The accompanying profile delves into their relationship – they started as friends almost ten years ago before becoming an on-off couple, finally marrying at a New York courthouse last year after about twelve weeks of being ‘on’ again.
So what did the interview tell us about the Biebers?
Hailey was NOT a Belieber before they met, OK
One of the most persistent rumours about the couple is that Hailey was a Justin Bieber superfan before she met him – they did meet after Hailey’s uncle Alec Baldwin got her tickets to see him perform, but she wasn’t a particular fan.
“I was never a superfan, of him or of anyone,” she says. “It was never that crazed, screaming thing. I didn’t think about it any kind of way except for the fact that he was cute. Everybody had a crush on him.”
Their first attempt at a relationship ended quite dramatically
They’re pretty sketchy about the details, but their brief relationship in 2016 ended after a “betrayal” occurred. Hailey explains that “negative things” happened that they still need to work through:
Fizzled would not be the right word. It was more like a very dramatic excommunication. There was a period where if I walked into a room, he would walk out.
Justin had been celibate for over a year by the time they started dating again
The singer says he made the decision after realising that he was acting “super promiscuous” and had what he calls “a legitimate problem wth sex”. Being celibate helped him feel closer to God:
[God] doesn’t ask us not to have sex for him because he wants rules and stuff. He’s like, I’m trying to protect you from hurt and pain. I think sex can cause a lot of pain. Sometimes people have sex because they don’t feel good enough. Because they lack self-worth.
He believes God blessed him with Hailey as a result of his ‘good behaviour’
“I wanted to rededicate myself to God in that way because I really felt it was better for the condition of my soul,” he says. “And I believe that God blessed me with Hailey as a result. There are perks. You get rewarded for good behaviour.”
And they got married so quickly in part because they wanted to have sex
The couple deny that they got married because Hailey was pregnant, but Justin reveals that the desire to finally have sex was one of the reasons they sped up their wedding. But also because he realised “how much I loved her and how much I missed her and how much of a positive impact she made on my life”. That too.
Their faith is their ‘common denominator’
They first got together after meeting at Hillsong, the megachurch that attracts a wide range of celebrity worshippers, and reconnected in June 2018 at a religious conference in Miami.
But Justin says he wouldn’t consider himself “religious”, in the sense that he doesn’t believe in “all the religious elitism and pretentiousness, like people are better than you because they come to church”. Fair enough.
They go to therapy together to help them with healthy communication
Justin admits that he struggles to trust people (understandable given his life so far), even his new wife – they both agree that marriage has been difficult so far, but therapy is helping them work through it.
He says that during these sessions they sometimes practice arguing without being unkind: “Fighting is good. Doesn’t the Bible talk about righteous anger? We don’t want to lose each other. We don’t want to say the wrong thing.”
Oh, and he calls her his ‘baby boo’
“With the lifestyle I live, everything is so uncertain. I need one thing that’s certain,” says Justin, rather maturely. “And that is my baby boo.”
In fairness to the pair of them, they seem pretty mad about each other. We’re rooting for you, Biebers.