"I'm very proud of it [the song]. It has a different meaning to me now from when I wrote it. I felt I didn't get a respectful closure, and I had accepted that, but I know I needed some way to just say a few things that I wish I had said. It's not a hateful song; it's a song that is saying—I had something beautiful and I would never deny that it wasn't that," she said. "It was very difficult and I'm happy it's over. And I felt like this was a great way to just say, you know, it's done, and I understand that, and I respect that, and now here I am stepping into a whole other chapter."
The interviewer, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, interjected, asking, "Saying goodbye to Justin Bieber, who I'm assuming you're speaking about" to which Gomez responded, "You had to get the name in, I get it."
"Do you look back on that time, and when you think about the parts of your life that were painful, that you've kind of moved on from, is that one of the harder parts?" Garcia-Navarro asked. "No, because I've found the strength in it. It's dangerous to stay in a victim mentality.
And I'm not being disrespectful, I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse—," Gomez replied, with Garcia-Navarro adding, "You mean emotional abuse?"
"Yes, and I think that it's something that—I had to find a way to understand it as an adult. And I had to understand the choices I was making," the Selena elaborated.
"As much as I definitely don't want to spend the rest of my life talking about this, I am really proud that I can say I feel the strongest I've ever felt and I've found a way to just walk through it with as much grace as possible."
Justin and Selena dated on and off between 2011 and 2018. Justin is now married to Hailey Baldwin.
In a legthy Instagram post last September the Baby singer admitted he wasn’t proud of his actions in the past; “doing pretty heavy drugs,” “abusing all of my relationships” and being “disrespectful to women”.