CULTURE

Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber’s Relationship Has Been “Meant to Be” for a While, per Cousin Ireland Baldwin

“It was just a long time coming.”

by Andrea Park

ireland hailey baldwin
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Since reports broke earlier this month claiming that Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber had gone ahead and tied the knot in secret—reports that Baldwin denied in a tweet that was deleted minutes later—nobody but the two of them has been entirely sure of their relationship status. Not even their nearest and dearest know exactly what’s going on: In an interview with Entertainment Tonight over the weekend, Ireland Baldwin shared that, while she’s unsure whether her cousin is now a married woman, she does know that Baldwin and Bieber are pretty much perfect for each other.

“I have no idea what their situation is,” Ireland said. “I think they’re just taking things slow. They’re just kissing all over the world. They’re just kissing and loving and having fun, and I think people take little details and get too caught up in them, and they’re looking too hard. Just let them kiss!” (A good rule of thumb.) Among the recent stops on this international kissing tour: London. Last week, Bieber was spotted serenading Baldwin outside Buckingham Palace, and she in turn posted and deleted a photo of them getting cuddly inside a pod on the London Eye.

Ireland went on to explain how the model and musician’s whirlwind relationship has been written in the stars for quite some time now. “It was meant to be a long time ago,” Ireland said. “It was just a long time coming, and we’re all like, ‘Alright, thank God, let’s move forward.’ They’re so in love and they really do a lot of good for each other, and that’s the most important thing for me, that he makes her so happy.” She added, “They just bring out the good in each other, they really do. I think they do a really good job of checking each other when one desperately needs to be checked and told, ‘You’re out of line.’ I think they really, really do care about each other so much and care about what others and what their families think of them.”

Ireland’s tentative speculation about her cousin’s relationship is markedly different from comments recently made by her father, Alec Baldwin, about his niece’s maybe-wedding. “They went off and got married, and I don’t know what the deal is!” he told Access at the Emmy Awards last week. Clearly, at this point, Biebwin’s relationship status is anyone’s guess.

Related: Celebrity Couples Before They Were Couples, From Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin to J.Lo and A-Rod

Celebrity Couples Before They Were Couples, From Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin to J.Lo and A-Rod

Yes, even before they were engaged, Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber have had remarkably similar hair. The pair has, after all, as they’ve repeatedly stated, been longtime friends, as evidenced here in this photo of them with Hailey’s dad, Stephen Baldwin, on the red carpet of the Times Square premiere of Bieber’s 3D film Never Say Never in 2011.

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Before showcasing their love for each other via many tattoos and Pete-emblazoned sweatshirts, Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson, who of course are now engaged, first met when Grande appeared at Davidson’s workplace, Saturday Night Live, and made a joke about them smoking crack.

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At the time of this meeting Lopez was with Marc Anthony, but it’s only fitting given that more than a decade later, J.Lo would move on from her then-husband to the much more fittingly named A-Rod, both seen here at a Yankees game in 2005. Their relationship started off with a bang late last year, when they had to evacuate the restaurant during their first date.

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Before Instagram, their family’s platform of choice, was even invented, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen met when it came time for Legend to film the music video for his 2006 song “Stereo,” which starred a nearly naked (and at times animated) Teigen.

Courtesy of Vevo

Feast your eyes upon Kim Kardashian with bangs—as well as her sister Kourtney and, of course, Kanye West, at a get-together all the way back in 2008. The pair looks a world away from the Kimye they are today—and even the Kimye they were when they first began, seeing as early on, Kanye transformed Kim’s grin into tears by throwing away 250 pairs of her bangs-era shoes.

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Back in 1991, there was no Victoria Beckham. Instead, there was a Victoria Adams, aka Posh Spice, who hung out with David Beckham and Elton John on red carpets, before marrying the soccer star later that decade, in 1999.

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Long before they married in 2015, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher were red carpet pals and costars on That ’70s Show, beginning when Kutcher was 20 and Kunis was just 14.

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Pete and Ariana’s union is a bit less surprising when you consider that back in 2002, the power couple-to-be Jay-Z and Beyoncé Knowles also stood side by side on SNL‘s stage. (Technically, they began dating a bit earlier, when Beyoncé was 19, but they had a phone-only relationship for the first year and a half.)

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Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are perhaps one of the only couples who can say their relationship began backstage at the VH1 Awards, which is exactly where they first met in 2004. Making it official, though, took a bit of waiting: They didn’t marry until 2010, after the California Supreme Court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional (and after de Rossi had split up with the director Francesca Gregorini, whom she’d been dating when she and DeGeneres first met.)

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The Olsen twins may be the first to catch your eye, but this photo primarily documents the early, 2005-era spark between Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, who’d go on to marry in 2010.

J. Vespa

In 2007, Salma Hayek announced that she was both pregnant and engaged to the French billionaire and Kering CEO François-Henri Pinault. They wed on Valentine’s Day in 2009—and again that April, this time in Venice—and Hayek hasn’t stopped making Fashion Week front row appearances since.

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Ryan Reynolds was still married to Scarlett Johansson when he and his Green Lantern costar Blake Lively appeared at Comic-Con in 2010. Two years later, a then-divorced Reynolds in turn made things official with Lively, who, in addition to giving birth to two children, has made a point to troll him ever since.

Kevin Winter

Back when she was still making a name for herself as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in 1997, Sarah Michelle Gellar starred in first-ever major movie: I Know What You Did Last Summer—and just so happened to meet Freddie Prinze Jr., her then-costar who, in 2002, would go on to become her husband.

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Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra, one of this year’s most surprising couples, came to be after they met at the 2017 Met Gala, which saw Ralph Lauren, whose designs they each wore, pair them up. Fast forward to just over a year later, and suddenly they’ve become attached at the hip. They’ve wasted no time with their relationship, which they struck up less than two months ago; both Jonas and Chopra has already met the other’s family.

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