Make a strained reference to Rebecca Black's Friday and be optimistic about Australia's medal chances at the London Olympics, because it is 2011 once again. How else could we explain the pictures of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez that have been surfacing this week?
The on-again, off-again early 2010s couple appear to have - possibly; nothing is confirmed beyond an Us Weekly "insider" saying it's a thing - reignited their romance. after being spotted attending church, riding bikes and even watching the hockey together this week.
The original relationship:
Bieber and Gomez began dating in 2010 when Gomez was 18 and Bieber was just 16.
Two years later, the couple, dubbed "Jelena", moved in together. As a Disney starlet (Gomez was best known for her role on the Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place at the time) and teen pop heartthrob, Gomez and Bieber were routinely followed by the paparazzi.
The pair's relationship was notoriously turbulent and the speculation surrounding whether they were together at any given point made for incredible tabloid fodder. They ultimately separated in 2014, after breaking up multiple times during their three-year relationship.
The post-mortem:
In 2015, both Bieber and Gomez relaunched their music careers (Bieber after multiple arrests and stints in rehab, Gomez after a health scare which would later be revealed as the singer undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lupus), and gave weirdly similar promotional interviews which dissected their relationship.
Gomez went first, telling Britain's Sunday Times in August that the media pressure on the relationship became too much.
"There's such an emphasis on people being the perfect thing and then destroying them because it's good press," she said. "Throw in the fact that you're a teenager???????? - it makes it more difficult."
A month later, Bieber told Complex magazine the relationship was bound to "disappoint" because of how heavily invested he and Gomez were in making it work, despite being so young.
"We were so in love. Nothing else mattered. We were all about each other. But when it's like that and you get your value from that, people will always disappoint you," Bieber said.
The resurrection:
By the start of this year, both Bieber and Gomez had appeared to move on.
Meanwhile, this year Gomez has been dating Canadian singer The Weeknd (not a typo, also obviously not his real name, which is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye).
But, with news Selena Gomez and The Weeknd ended things this week, a number of sightings have created a sense that Jelena, after years of keeping their distance, may be back on. Here's the evidence.
- On October 29, the pair were spotted having breakfast together before attending a church service at Hillsong in Los Angeles.
- On November 1, Gomez and Bieber went on a very performative bike ride around Los Angeles. But, to complicate our analysis, what did Gomez wear to said bike ride? A highlighter blue jacket that had previously been spotted on The Weeknd. But if you thought that was the end of the outerwear analysis you would be incorrect because, later that day, Gomez watched Bieber play hockey in Los Angeles. As the pair left, she was wearing his New Jersey Devils jersey.
