Supermodel Hailey Bieber has criticized the “social club” experience at church, saying it made her feel isolated when she and her now-husband, Justin Bieber, broke up after dating briefly in 2016.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, the young celebrity and daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin claimed she was outcasted by many in her church community after briefly breaking things off with the pop star in 2016.
The couple were seen regularly attending Hillsong church together at the time.
“There were a lot of people in the church world that made me feel very outcast,” she shared in the interview that was published on Tuesday. “When did church become a social club? That was such a bad feeling.”
The couple first met as children after Stephen Baldwin introduced the two. They dated and broke up when she was 19. She told Elle their lives were “going in very different directions.”
The couple reconnected at a 2018 church conference in Miami, and she said her friends — pastors Judah Smith and Chelsea Smith of Churchome — were some of the few church people that stood by her side through it all.
Smith is the pastor who officiated the couple’s 2019 wedding.
Last November, Bieber and her husband sat down with the Smiths on their “In Good Faith” podcast. They spoke candidly about their marriage, the highs and lows and some of the struggles, including Justin Bieber’s journey with mental health struggles.
In an interview for Hillsong TV, Bieber shared more about the pressure she’s put on herself because of her Christian upbringing. Along with once feeling rejected by the church, Bieber revealed that a few months into her marriage, she struggled with a lot of guilt from her past.