In the celebrity world, Halloween is a competition—iconic costumes put together by iconic people battling for public view and media boosts. The 2023 year has produced some fantastic costumes, through Heidi Klum who always shows up and shows out, and Hailey Beiber surprising with a maybe shady, bit of 2000s flair, and the focus is all on her.

Beiber started mild, with some unsuspecting costumes a few weeks before Halloween matching up with Justin. In one photo she dressed in a custom vampire outfit with a matched-up red corset, lace cover, and furry mini skirt, with a dripping red lip guessed to be from her brand, Rhode. She also had another couple's costume with Justin, dressing as the Flintstones, a Ghostface victim, and more. Outlets also assumed one of her costumes was of Rachel, from Friends, and while she never revealed it, her similar hair and huge coffee mug presented her as a Rachel Green vision.¹ On her Instagram, she posted many pictures of her taking place as the main, Mean Girls. She dressed as Cady, Gretchen, Regina, and Karen, which was speculated to be throwing shade at how she was portrayed as a mean girl in the media this past year.

Everyone knows how the media loves to take women in power and turn them against each other and portray them as “mad” or “b*tchy”. In the past, Selena Gomez and Hailey Beiber have gone out of their way to say that they have no bad blood and that everything is fine between them. However, over the summer Selena posted a video on TikTok, showing and stating how she accidentally over laminated her eyebrows, then late that day and week Hailey posted on her Instagram story a picture of her perfectly done brows, and then a screenshot of her and Kylie Jenner on facetime showing off their brows. Of course, everyone took this as an attack from Beiber to Gomez and amplified the situation, while it was pointing toward that, fans took it and went crazy. I feel like Hailey shouldn't have done that, unless (while it was kind of obvious in response) it may not have been on purpose (I feel like it was likely on purpose), people began to send death threats Hailey's way. After a few months everything “Selena vs Hailey '' cooled off. But my mind thought back when seeing her Mean Girls inspired theme.

First, she posted a picture of her as all the Mean Girls placed on the movie's promotional poster. She took the place of Cady, Karen, Regina, and Gretchen, in their nostalgic, iconic replicas of all their outfits.² This was mocking the reputation she's gained this year, which was an amazing slapback. But then, some (speculated) shade was thrown, with her posting a mockup burn book page of herself, like how Regina made one of herself to frame Cady. The page was just like the one in Mean Girls defacing a picture of her and writing Regina targeted words amid her breakdown, “This girl is the nastiest sk@nk b****. I've ever met! Do not trust her! She is a fugly sl*t!”² Taking her viewers by storm, shocking everyone with the honestly, great comeback. What took the cake for me was the fact that the picture she used in the photo she defaced was one she took with Selena at the Academy Museum Gala, like how the photo Regina used of herself was cut from a duo picture of her and Cady.