Selena Gomez, the beloved pop star and actor who has always been in the public eye for both her professional and personal lives, opened up about her long battle with Lupus, an auto-immune disease, for the first time in a 2015 interview with Billboard. Since then, Gomez has been quite vocal and candid about her physical and mental health issues and how they have had a massive impact on her life and that of her loved ones.
Reportedly, in January 2014, the singer checked into an Arizona rehab facility named Meadows. The news was sensationalized by various tabloids, which stated an array of reasons behind her stay at the facility without having any actual clue regarding what was going on with the singer at the time. In the interview with Billboard in 2015, when asked about the reason behind her stay, Selena Gomez said:
“I was diagnosed with [autoimmune disease] lupus, and I’ve been through chemotherapy. That’s what my break was really about. I could’ve had a stroke.”
When asked why she did not open up earlier and suffered all the mean rumors that were coming her way, she said:
“I wanted so badly to say, ‘You guys have no idea. I’m in chemotherapy. You’re a**holes,’…But I was angry I even felt the need to say that. It’s awful walking into a restaurant and having the whole room look at you, knowing what they’re saying. I locked myself away until I was confident and comfortable again.”
“Just because it’s not plastered everywhere doesn’t mean I didn’t have my rock bottom”: Selena Gomez felt she’d lose her place in the industry
In the same interview with Billboard, Selena Gomez further explained how she felt insecure about her place in the industry and how she thought that she would be losing everything she’d worked so hard for. The singer said:
“I felt like I’d lost everything,…Just because it’s not plastered everywhere doesn’t mean I didn’t have my rock bottom. I’ve had my moments, and it’s almost unsafe for me to even talk about them, because I’ll be taken advantage of.”
She also opened up about how the harsh opinions of her close ones about her appearance and her husky voice affected her the most. She said:
“As a woman, especially, you expect it in the business,…but from the people that I chose to love — that was a bummer.”
In the interview, Selena Gomez also spoke about the hypocrisy and double standards that exist in the industry, where female artists are perceived in a different way than male artists. She said:
“If I did half the things guys did, I wouldn’t have a Pantene deal,…There’s a certain standard women are held to because…I don’t know. So many women nowadays are so loud about it. We need to cause a bit of uproar, because I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. It’s absurd.”
While describing her mental and physical state at the time, she quoted the worship band Hillsong United, “I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground.” She also said that the key to maintaining good health was “diet, routine and medication.”
From playing Alex Russo in Wizards of Waverly Place to garnering 150 awards and 455 nominations so far to launching her very own beauty brand, Rare Beauty, the 30-year-old singer and actor Selena Gomez has truly come a long way. She will soon return as Mabel Mora in season 3 of the hit Hulu series Only Murders in the Building.
