Hailey Bieber, neé Baldwin, has opened up about deciding to marry at a young age.
The model married Justin Bieber in September 2018 in a legal ceremony in a New York City courthouse following a whirlwind engagement after reuniting earlier that year.
A year later, the couple marked the occasion on a grander scale by holding lavish wedding celebrations at a South Carolina venue attended by A-list friends including Kylie Jenner, Usher and Joan Smalls.
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Speaking to ELLE US, the model - now 24 - reflected on her decision to marry young, telling the magazine: 'I mean, I was married when I was 21, two months before I turned 22, which is insanely young. And sounds almost ridiculous when you say it out loud.'
However, Bieber says that while, conventionally, it might be seen as young in the present day, it made sense for both her and her husband who both have 'seen a lot for our age', owing to their celebrity lifestyles. 'We have both lived enough life to know that’s what we wanted,' she explained.
The couple first met as teenagers and became friends before starting a romantic relationship first in 2016 and then again two years later after the 'Yummy' singer split for good from his on-off girlfriend Selena Gomez.
The runway star explained that when they reunited, her husband was in a place where he felt ready to settle down, which the crooner himself has discussed publicly before while opening up candidly about his high-profile controversies like drug use and legal troubles.
'We were friends first for a really long time before there was anything romantic,' she said. 'But we always knew that we were aligned on what we wanted in our future. We had talked about wanting to be married young and having a family young and building a life. Even before we knew we wanted to be with each other.'
Though married life appears happy and content for the Biebers, judging by their gushing Instagram posts and forthcoming comments about their love for each other, the model also opened up about the intense scrutiny and trolling she faced when she married Justin, so much so that it led her to turn off comments from her Instagram account to protect her mental health.
'In the beginning of our marriage, I just wanted to hide. I was like, "I don’t want people so in my business. I feel like everybody’s up my ass". I was like, "Can there be no anonymity? Can I have any of it back?”... I remember someone telling me that [turning off public comments] really lowers your engagement. And I was like, "I could give a f*ck about engagement! People are terrorising me, "Engagement, enschagement". I don’t care.'
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Olivia Blair is Entertainment Editor (Luxury) at Hearst UK, working across ELLE, Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. Olivia covers all things entertainment and has interviewed the likes of Margot Robbie, Emma Stone, Michaela Coel and Ryan Gosling over the years.
