Never say never: Hailey Bieber is officially speaking out about an important chapter of her life.
The 25-year-old—who recently celebrated her fourth wedding anniversary with Justin Bieber—clarified the timeline of her relationship with the singer publicly for the first time, which has always been a topic for fans following their romance. (Prior to marrying Hailey in Sept 2018, the "Peaches" singer had an on-and-off relationship with Selena Gomez for almost eight years until the two split earlier that year).
"Okay, let's just put it this way," Hailey said during the Sept. 28 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast. "When him and I started like hooking up or like anything of that sort, he was not ever in a relationship ever at any point. I would never—it's not my character to mess with someone's relationship. I would just never do that. I was raised better than that. I'm not interested in doing that, and I never was."
Although Hailey said she recognizes that "there are situations where you can still have a back and forth with someone," she said that wasn't the case by the time she and Justin had decided to embark on their new chapter.
(Hailey and Justin first sparked romance rumors in late 2014 and would split more than a year later before reconciling in 2018, which came months after Justin and Selena called it quits).
"I can say period point-blank, I was never with him when he was in a relationship with anybody," Hailey added. "That's the end of it. And I had been involved with him since I was 18. I think sometimes is in question of like us getting together and getting engaged and him having been spending time with his ex before that…I understand how it looks from the outside and there's a lot of perception there, but that was a situation where I know for a fact that it was the right thing for them to close that door."
However, Hailey recognizes that there's only so much she can say about his prior romance. "They were not in a relationship at that time, but of course there's a very long history there and it's not my relationship," she continued. "It has nothing to do with me. So, I respect that a lot, but 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 like, move on with, with his life in that way."
She added, "And it's hard for me to talk about this because I don't want to talk on at either one of their behalf. Again, because it was their relationship and I honestly respect that very deeply, but I just know what was going on when we got back together. And I know what had to happen for that to come back together in a healthy way."
As Hailey noted, the road to rekindling their bond was paved with good intentions.
"I would never want to get into a relationship with someone and be engaged to them and be getting married to them and thinking the back of my mind, ‘I wonder if that was really closed for you,'" she shared. "I know for a fact that the reason we were able to get back together was because it was very much completely closed and that is respectful to me."