Justin and Hailey Bieber have had a rough time lately. Justin recently suffered facial paralysis and has been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a complication of the shingles virus that can lay dormant in one's body for decades. And in March, Hailey Bieber had a blood clot that traveled to her brain and required surgery.
Because I'm not a doctor, and specifically not their doctor, I have no idea how or why they have developed these health issues. But that hasn't stopped anti-vaxxers from exclaiming all over social media that the cause of all of these issues is, of course, the COVID-19 vaccines. According to a recent article in Rolling Stone, there just isn't enough evidence to show a link between vaccines and Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. Sadly, that won't stop the wild speculation.
Bieber's health disclosure prompted a flurry of explainers across the internet, with many news outlets explaining what Ramsay Hunt Syndrome is, what its symptoms are, and how to treat it. It also prompted anti-vaxxers to wildly speculate, based on very limited evidence, that Bieber had contracted the virus as a result of getting the Covid-19 vaccine.
"Everybody pretending Justin Bieber isn't vaccine injured. The denial is way too deep," reads one tweet with more than 3,400 shares.
TikTok also became a petri dish for such conspiracy-mongering content. "Both Hailey (clot) and Justin Bieber are having SEs [side effects]," one user wrote in the caption to her video, along with an emoji of a syringe. "GUYS, WAKE THE FUCK UP."
