Gossip she and the former One Direction star were an item dates back to Saturday March 25, 2023, when an eyewitness tells Entertainment Tonight, “Selena and Zayn went out in SoHo in New York City last night at around 10:30 pm. They walked in holding hands and were kissing. Most restaurant staff and restaurant goers didn’t notice them. It seemed like they were comfortable together and it was clear that it was a date.”
TikTok user @klarissa.mpeg also shared a text change from a friend of hers who claimed they were Zayn and Selena’s hostess at a restaurant. The user explained that both she and her friend work at celebrity-favorite restaurants. “Tell me how Selena Gomez and Zayn just walked into [a restaurant] hand in hand making out and I seated them,” the friend wrote. The date also came weeks after Selena followed Zayn on Instagram. (At the time of the dinner, Selena was also one of 18 accounts Zayn followed.) So how did Selena Gomez respond to those Zayn Malik dating rumors? Read on to find out.
How did Selena Gomez respond to Zayn Malik dating rumors?
@selenagomez The struggle man lol
Selena Gomez responded to Zayn Malik rumors with a hilarious TikTok posted on June 8, 2023. In the video, she’s rugged up while watching a soccer training session. “I’m single!” she yells to the players. “I’m just a little high maintenance, but I’ll love you so much.” She captioned the video: “The struggle man lol,” which featured one of her friends laughing in the background.
Countless followers compared her behavior to that of her Wizards of Waverly Place character Alex Russo. “This is still Alex Russo but 15 years older,” one user commented, while another observed that Selena was “back at it.” It’s the first time she’s addressed her relationship status since the rumors started.
Back in the 2010s, Selena was asked on a red carpet about which One Direction she’d most want to kiss. “Oh no,” she said before quickly answering, “Zayn,” with a laugh. Later, in an interview with InStyle UK in 2016, Selena denied rumors she was dating Zayn, which had surfaced when Justin Bieber suggested Selena and cheated on him with Zayn. “If he had asked me out on a date, I would be seen with him. Just kidding, but not kidding,” she told the magazine.
DID JUSTIN JUST SAY SELENA CHEATED ON HIM WITH ZAYN pic.twitter.com/p8RTjytKKr
— ☀️☀️☀️ (@zxrrysome) August 15, 2016
Justin and Selena dated on and off from 2008 to 2018, while Justin and Hailey Baldwin (his current wife) dated for six months in 2016 before reuniting in 2018, a month after Justin’s breakup with Selena. Justin and Hailey got engaged in July 2018 and married two months later. In an interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in 2022, Hailey explained how she and Justin got back together and confirmed that he and Selena were already broken up by the time they reunited.
“When he and I ever started, like, hooking up or anything of that sort, he was not ever in a relationship ever — at any point,” she explained. “I’m not interested in doing that and I never was. … I can say — period, point blank — I was never with him when he was in a relationship with anybody,” Hailey said. She continued, “It’s not my character to mess with someone’s relationship.”
Though she and Justin were both single when they got back together in 2018, Hailey added that she could “understand” how her and Justin’s relationship could look different “from the outside.” She continued, “That was a situation where I know for a fact that it was the right thing for them to close that door. They were not in a relationship at that time, but of course, there’s a very long history there. … It has nothing to do with me. I know that it closed a chapter and I think it was the best thing that could have happened for him to move on and be engaged and get married and move on with his life in that way.”
In March 2023, Justin was accused of shading Selena Gomez amid her alleged drama with Hailey Bieber. The accusations came when Justin hosted his 29th birthday party after he performed at the Rolling Loud California musical festival in Los Angeles, California, and gave guests a silver souvenir that read: “I’m so thankful that I didn’t end up with what I thought I wanted,” which fans assumed was shade toward Selena.
“This is so petty, I mean if that’s the way you and your wife feel keep that petty sht to yourself lol and please, you don’t have to mention somebody’s name or say ‘who’ to understand exactly what they talkin abt,” one user tweeted.
In February 2023, Selena thanked a fan for acknowledging her struggles after her breakup with Justin in a comment in a comment on a TikTok video. “Does anybody just feel really bad for Selena Gomez? Like can you imagine going through a breakup so publicly with a guy who you were in love with for seven years and then like two months later he just marries someone,” TikTok user @essymakingsounds said in the video. “And then you have a chronic illness or an autoimmune disease — I can’t imagine that it’s fun. Living with that and the flareups in the public eye while people are watching you.”
The user continued, “And then dealing with mental health when life is hard enough already. Kudos to her for being so brave and so public and so open about her journey. But I bet if we ever walked a day in her shoes — where everything is so publicized — that would be so hard. So whenever I think about a hard day, I think about Selena Gomez. I feel bad saying that but if she can do it then everybody can.” Selena thanked the user in the comments and revealed that the TikTok “made” her “cry.” “That made me cry, thank you!” she wrote.
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