Nearly a year after welcoming her first child with husband, Justin Bieber, Hailey Bieber is opening up about her postpartum struggles.
The Rhode Beauty founder battled with postpartum body dysmorphia after giving birth to her son, Jack Blues, in August 2024. At times, Bieber struggled to recognize her own body.
“Every day I have to talk to myself, like, Hailey, you had a baby,” she told Vogue for its summer cover story. “You grew a human. You birthed a human. It’s okay. Give yourself grace. Give yourself time.”
Bieber told the outlet that life after giving birth is “the most sensitive time” she’s ever gone through. Having to endure this major life change in the public eye, she added, is even more difficult.
“And to be doing that all the while going on the internet every day and people being like, They’re getting divorced and They’re this and They’re not happy: It is such a mindf**k. I cannot even begin to explain it. It’s a crazy life to live,” she added.
Helping her come to grips with the unwanted criticism that comes with a changing body was Wicked star Ariana Grande, whose own body has long been subjected to public scrutiny. Fans and online critics have shared both concern and judgment of Grande’s body, deeming her underweight. The persistent chatter over her weight and overall appearance prompted Grande to record a video addressing it in 2023.
While promoting Wicked in 2024, Grande spoke out about body shaming again, imploring the public to refrain from making comments about women’s bodies. Grande told French journalist Salima Jeanne Poumbga, known as Crazy Sally, that she no longer allows that criticism into her life.
“It’s not welcome. I have work to do, I have a life to live, I have friends to love on, I have so much love, and [the noise is] not invited. So I don’t leave space for it anymore,” she said.
Grande’s comments struck a particular chord with Bieber.
“It was so true to me when she said that. I am in a space where I just don’t accept it. I don’t allow it anymore. We don’t have to allow those things into our space if we don’t want to,” Bieber told Vogue.
In addition to getting a new therapist to help her transition into motherhood, Bieber told Vogue she took placenta pills to help prevent postpartum depression and has continued to take prenatal vitamins. But returning to her prepregnancy body has proven to be a challenge.
“When people talk about ‘bouncing back’ — back where, because my hips are wider, my boobs are actually bigger than they were before,” she told Vogue. “They did not go back. And great, I’ll take it, but it’s not the same body that it was before.”
But critics haven’t made Bieber’s journey to self-acceptance any easier. The Rhode Beauty founder was recently the target of a slew of videos on TikTok, accusing her of stalking her now husband when they were teenagers. The multipart series, originally posted as a YouTube video in August 2024, also accuses her of bullying and copying the “Baby” singer’s ex-girlfriend, Selena Gomez. It was reported in March that Bieber is considering taking legal action against the creator responsible for the original video.
Hailey Bieber at Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles in 2024. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
The Rhode Beauty founder has long been outspoken about her body image struggles — and the idea that she’s supposed to look a certain way or maintain a particular figure. Bieber, who’s often lauded for her model off-duty street style that features a slew of oversize leather jackets and low-slung denim, is counted as one of fashion’s “it” girls. With such coveted status comes the inevitable criticism — and attention to her body.
“Women go through so much with their bodies and I feel like people just don’t have any empathy with that,” Bieber told singer Addison Rae on her That Was Fun? podcast in 2021. “It’s like, well how do you know what is even going on with my body right now? Birth control is wild, periods are wild, what if I’m PMSing?”
In 2023, Bieber also revealed that she’s no stranger to pregnancy rumors.
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my god, she’s pregnant,’ and that’s happened to me multiple times before,” she told GQ. “There is something that’s disheartening about, Damn, I can’t be bloated one time and not be pregnant? It would be a lie if I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I don’t give a shit.’”
Bieber, all things considered, appears to be living her life to its fullest. The beauty mogul recently celebrated her first Mother’s Day, and also accompanied her husband, Justin, to a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game.
“You’re not the same person that you were before,” Bieber told Vogue of her postpartum body. “You change head to toe. And I think there was a minute where I kept really hyper-fixating on getting back to what I was. And then I had to go through that acceptance of, I’m not going back. So it’s really about how do I want to move forward? Who do I want to be?”
