The 4 People The Weeknd & Bella Have In Common Are So Intertwined

Celebrity relationships and friendships are a rare breed. These famous faces have their lives played out in front of the masses, whether it’s the good, the bad, or the straight-up shady. In Elite Daily’s new series, It’s Complicated, we’re highlighting the biggest celebrity “feuds” that took over Hollywood and dominated our Sunday brunches for weeks on end. We’ll take a deep dive into the lives and social media feeds of our favorite stars and dissect what happened in front of the camera, what went down behind the scenes, and everything you might have missed in between.

Bella Hadid and The Weeknd were once Hollywood's biggest "It couple," but they called it quits in August 2019. While most people can go about their lives without worrying about running into an ex or their friends randomly after a breakup, that certainly isn't the case for this pair. After over four years of dating on and off, they inevitably ended up with overlapping friend circles. There are so many people The Weeknd and Bella Hadid have in common, and it's put them in some potentially awkward situations throughout their roller-coaster relationship.

In late November 2016, they had to keep things professional when they literally crossed paths on the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show runway just weeks after their first breakup earlier that month. Then, after their second breakup in August 2019, they reportedly crossed paths at Mark Ronson's Club Heartbreak event in Los Angeles. Both instances show just how small Hollywood is and how interconnected their friendship circles are, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

1. Drake

Drake and The Weeknd were good friends from the start of their music careers in the late 2000s; both artists hail from Toronto, Canada. When The Weeknd was just gaining popularity in the U.S. in late 2010, Drizzy publicly supported him by posting his music on his blog.

In 2011, the pair collaborated on Drake's album Take Care, on which The Weeknd co-wrote four songs. They later performed "Fake Love" and "Energy" together during The Weeknd's March 2017 Starboy: Legend of the Fall tour stop in London.

But by October 2017, there were reports about rising tension between the two artists. The reported beef stemmed from rumors Drake and Hadid were dating after he threw her an epic 21st birthday party.

Hadid insisted she and Drake were just friends. When a fan accused her of hooking up with him on Twitter in June 2018, she responded by saying, "Not me!!! that’s disrespectful. WHY CANT PPL BE FRIENDS W/o all the insinuation."

Still, the rumors seemingly didn't sit well with The Weeknd. By January 2019, he'd reconciled with Hadid after their November 2016 breakup, but fans couldn't help noticing one verse in his track "Lost in the Fire" seemingly took aim at Drake for keeping his son, Adonis, a secret. "And I just want a baby with the right one/'Cause I could never be the one to hide one," he sings.

Luckily, by December 2019, the artists squashed their beef. Drake's "War" freestyle lyrics hinted at why. In it, he alludes to The Weeknd being a forever friend, rapping, “And the boy that sound like he sang on Thriller / You know that’s been my ni**a / We just had to fix things, family, 6 things, we can’t split up."

2. Selena Gomez

The Weeknd and Selena Gomez made headlines when they were spotted making out in January 2017, just two months after he called it quits with Hadid for the first time. The two dated for 10 months, and there was definitely some awkwardness between Gomez and Hadid after that.

On Nov. 17, 2019, Gomez liked and commented on one of Hadid's Instagrams, calling her "stunning." Hadid later deleted the photo — a move fans interpreted as shade — and Gomez commented that the whole situation "sucked."

Thankfully, the ladies patched things up a day later. "I shouldn't of spoken without knowing the truth. I'm sorry," Gomez commented on Instagram after they'd talked things out behind the scenes. "She is a wonderful person, and it was all a misunderstanding."

Meanwhile, Gomez and The Weeknd remain on good terms post-split. “They are still talking and will remain friends. They have been very grown-up about it,” an insider told E! News in October 2017 shortly after their breakup.

3. Taylor Swift

A spot in Taylor Swift's squad is highly coveted, and the Hadid sisters have theirs on lock. Swift has been spotted hanging out with Gigi numerous times starting in 2014, and her sister has been known to tag along too. Bella and Taylor both attended Gigi's denim-themed 24th birthday party in April 2019. Then they met up again at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party that August.

Meanwhile, The Weeknd forged his own relationship with Swift through the years. In July 2015, fans were shocked to see him join Swift on stage for an epic performance of "Can't Feel My Face" during Swift's 1989 World Tour stop in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

4. Ed Sheeran

In November 2015, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, and Bella Hadid attended an event at the Hard Rock in New York City together. At the time, Hadid and The Weeknd were romantically involved, but they both had individual friendships with Sheeran.

When The Weeknd was recording his 2015 album Beauty Behind the Madness, he enlisted Sheeran for some help on his track "Dark Times."

The Weekend gave Sheeran high praise after working together. "[He] was the fastest and most talented songwriter I’ve ever worked with… If we stayed in the studio another week, we could’ve had a full album," he said after performing the song together on stage at his The Madness Fall Tour stop in Toronto in November 2015.

As for Hadid, she runs in the same circle as Sheeran since he's also a longtime BFF of Taylor Swift, and was also a card-carrying member of her squad. When asked if he ever hung out with the mostly-female group of friends in a 2015 interview with Billboard, he said, "Of course. It's not a vaginas-only club."

If you thought The Weeknd and Hadid's interconnected friend circles make it hard for them to stay friends post-split, think again. The former couple has kept things 100% civil and supportive. Hadid voiced her thoughts on why that's important to do in a February 2017 interview with Teen Vogue, sharing, "I’ll always respect him, and I’ll always love him. Sometimes you want to be sad about it or handle it differently, but at the end of the day, you never want to burn a bridge that you’ve fought so hard to build."