Fans Think Hailey Bieber Copied Selena Gomez's Cooking Show... & They Are Weirdly Similar
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If you've opened up Twitter or TikTok in the past few weeks, you've likely seen at least one post about Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber. The years-long tension between the stars has finally reached its boiling point, and internet sleuths are picking apart every social media post, tattoo, and paparazzi photo to get to the bottom of the drama.
However, one piece of the puzzle that has been receiving the most scrutiny is their respective cooking shows. And as someone with no stake in the game (a.k.a. I'm a rare Gen-Zer that neither listened to Justin Bieber's music nor followed the drama surrounding his romantic life), I feel that I'm uniquely qualified to assess the similarities between the two shows and offer as objective a critique as possible.
Gomez's show, Selena + Chef, premiered on HBO Max in 2020. The series first followed the singer, actress, and makeup mogul learning to cook while quarantining during the pandemic, guided virtually by some of the world's most lauded chefs. Selena + Chef has since aired four seasons and featured guests like Rachael Ray, Gordon Ramsay, Padma Lakshmi, and José Andrés.
Hailey Bieber's cooking show, What's In My Kitchen?, can be found on her personal YouTube channel. It's one of many programs filmed in her and Justin's $26 million Beverly Hills mansion. The first episode was uploaded in December of 2022 and Bieber has only uploaded one other installment as of the publication of this story.
Before we delve deeper into both of the shows, it's essential to note that the concept of a celebrity cooking show is not unique to Gomez, or any celebrity for that matter. Stars like Florence Pugh, Jennifer Garner, and Courteney Cox have started their informal cooking shows on social media, with others like Tiffani Thiessen, Tia Mowry, and Trisha Yearwood landing their own cable TV food shows.
So, while some may accuse Bieber of copying Selena for doing a cooking show, I'm going to go ahead and call that a reach.
But that's not where the similarities end. One moment making the rounds on TikTok places clips from both Gomez's and Bieber's shows where they each make an eerily similar disclaimer.
Both stars introduce their respective shows by mentioning that they're filming in their "real kitchen" and that it's "not a set." Yes, those statements may be true for both of them—but Bieber's version seems a little too specific and a little too coincidental.
For Bieber, almost all of the nearly 60 videos on her channel are filmed in her home already. And with the title "What's In My Kitchen?" it's already explicitly stated that the show is filmed in her own space. While a brief mention of working in her "real kitchen" may be understandable, the amount of airtime she dedicated to this disclaimer and the verbiage she used raises some alarm bells.
Another source of controversy between the two shows is the inclusion of Gomez's and Bieber's grandparents as guest stars. Gomez has featured her Nana and Papa several times over the 40 episodes of Selena + Chef, and Bieber included both her Nana and her mother in the second episode of What's In My Kitchen?.
This similarity has prompted several sleuths to accuse Bieber of copying Gomez by not only including her family, but also using the same endearing nicknames. Sorry, but that sounds like another reach to me. Both Gomez and Bieber are filming in their own homes, so it's natural to include family members in episodes. And let's be real: Selena Gomez did not revolutionize the use of "nana" to refer to your grandmother.
In the grand scheme of this celebrity drama, the subject of the cooking show may stir the pot just a little bit—but not enough to warrant TikTok fan edits and wild accusations. If you're looking for weirder coincidences between the two stars, you're better off looking at Bieber's past tweets and old paparazzi videos.
What's your take on the Selena and Hailey drama?
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