As the next-generation video coding standard, High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) has adopted advanced coding tools despite the increase in computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a selective bi-prediction method to reduce the encoding complexity of HEVC. The proposed method evaluates the statistical property of the sum of absolute differences in the motion estimation process and determines whether bi-prediction is performed. A performance comparison of the complexity reduction is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method compared to the HEVC test model version 4.0. On average, 50% of the bi-prediction time can be reduced by the proposed method, while maintaining a negligible bit increment and a minimal loss of image quality.