In this file photo, Hailey Bieber attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Camp: Notes on Fashion" exhibition on Monday, May 6, 2019, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
TORONTO --
Model and actress Hailey Baldwin Bieber has posted a call for a kinder internet in the new year, calling social media “a breeding ground for cruelty.”
Baldwin, who recently married Canadian popstar Justin Bieber, posted a photo of blue sky and ocean on her Instagram on Friday. But accompanying the picture-perfect vista was a caption lamenting the way people interact with each other online.
“Because people don’t take the time to connect with each other on an honest level before they resort to hatred, it starts to damage what could be really beautiful human interaction and connection,” she wrote in the post.
She opened up further about vitriol she said she has received on social media.
“NEWS FLASH: it hurts to be torn apart on the internet!!! It hurts to be compared to other human beings every single day, it hurts for people to jump to conclusions and make assumptions. It hurts to be called names, and to feel like you don’t measure up to a certain standard.”
Baldwin, 23, and Bieber, 25, tied the knot this past September. While some fans have been supportive of the couple, they’ve faced criticism from those who felt the marriage was premature.
The model said in her post that she loves “connecting with other people,” and that she is hurt by online comments because she works to stay open to positive emotions.
“I share this only because it weighs often on my heart and because it’s important to be honest about how these things affect us mentally and emotionally,” she wrote in her conclusion. “Hopefully it speaks to someone struggling with the same.
“With that being said Happy New Year. Let’s connect more in 2020.”
As of Saturday afternoon, her post had already received over 530 thousand likes.
