Selena Gomez defended her ‘best friend’ Taylor Swift after old footage was unearthed of her being mocked by Hailey Bieber.

The throwback clip showed Hailey and Method Man, who used to co-host the show Drop The Mic, taking aim at Taylor’s score-settling songs.

Method Man teased a ‘rap battle full of the meanest lyrics about a celebrity since Taylor Swift’s last album,’ prompting Hailey to mime making herself vomit.

A TikTok account posted the video and wrote: ‘This is REAL Hailey “Bieber,”‘ denouncing Hailey as a ‘bully’ and a ‘mean girl.’ 

Adding fuel to the fire, Selena, 30, leapt into the TikTok comments to write: ‘Sorry, my best friend is and continues to be one of the best in the game.’

Taylor and Selena have been friends since 2008, when they were both teen stars dating two different Jonas Brothers.

In the intervening years Selena had a longtime on-off romance with Justin Bieber, who went on to marry Hailey in 2018.

Although Selena fans have relentlessly trolled Hailey on social media, the two women have denied that there is any bad blood between them.

They even went viral last October when they cuddled up to one another for the cameras at the Academy Museum gala in Los Angeles. 

In a subsequent interview with Vulture, Selena said the snaps with Hailey were ‘not a big deal’ and added: ‘It’s not even a thing.’ 

Hailey had already previously indicated on the Call Her Daddy podcast that her equation with Selena was ‘all respect’ – and during the same interview she staunchly denied that Justin had cheated on Selena with her. 

Selena and Justin were teenage sweethearts but underwent their last breakup in 2018, months before he had a courthouse marriage to Hailey.

The month after Justin married Hailey, Selena reportedly suffered a breakdown connected to her lupus and entered treatment for her mental health.

A day after news broke of Selena’s alleged breakdown, Justin was spotted looking anguished as he sat in his car beside Hailey.

Hailey has received blowback from diehard Selena fans throughout her relationship with Justin, whom she has now been married to for over four years.

When Justin and Hailey attended the Americana-themed Met Gala together in September 2021, onlookers chanted ‘Selena!’ at them. 

Hailey’s cousin Ireland claimed that the couple were unfazed by the jeering Selena fans, writing on social media: ‘They’re one of the happiest and most in love couples I’ve ever gotten the chance to be around. They don’t care about them.’

Back in 2020 Justin shared a social media post by a Selena fan who encouraged others to flood Hailey’s livestream with remarks that ‘Jelena was better.’

‘It is extremely hard to choose the high road when I see people like this try and rally to gather people to bully the person I love the most in this world,’ Justin wrote. 

Hailey became so exasperated that this April she posted a TikTok begging the trolls who are ‘in my comments every single time I post’ to ‘leave me alone, please.’

Possibly referring to how long ago Justin and Selena broke up, she added: ‘Enough time has gone by where it’s valid to leave me alone. I beg of you, truly.’