Justin Bieber Defended Hailey From a Selena Gomez Fan

The Justin Bieber-Selena Gomez (“Jelena”) era is definitively over and has been for years. (A reminder: Bieber got married; Gomez released a perfect breakup song.) But that hasn’t stopped fans of the former couple from continuing to harass Justin and his wife, Hailey.

Just this Thursday, Justin posted to his Instagram after seeing that an internet troll had encouraged people to “bombard” Hailey’s planned Instagram Live with comments about Gomez being “better.” “Go after her, please, let’s all go after her,” the person said in a video directed at Jelena fans.

Justin was quick to write a response on his Instagram Stories, posting a note that read:

“This sad excuse of a human just encouraged people on video to literally go after my wife telling people to say that my previous relationship was better so on and so forth. I just wanted to share this so that people get an idea of what we face on a day to day. It is extremely hard to choose to take the high road when I see people like this try and rally to gather people to bully the person I love the most in this world. It is not right. But I will say this. As many people as there are that want to spend their time publicly degrading shaming and trying to humiliate us we would like to ask those who have it in them to lift us up in prayer. We need prayer and support as we continue to put ourselves out there!”

He then added another note, writing in part, “Life is fulfilling when you uplift and add value to people! A life where you want to make others feel small will leave you with no friends and no real JOY.”

But Justin wasn’t the only one who spoke out. Hailey also addressed the video, adding, “I would never in a million years wish for someone to be treated this way and I will never condone this kind of hateful behavior. I want only to support, uplift, and encourage other women in this industry and wish them nothing but love and success and I wish for all of my followers and supporters to do the same!!”