Selena Gomez Admits to Not Being Indifferent to Body-Shaming Criticism

Selena Gomez’s struggle with lupus and the subsequent body-shaming she experienced due to her medication were challenging. In the face of public scrutiny, the musician and actor chose to address hateful comments by criticizing society’s fixation on physical perfection. She wrote in a March 2018 Instagram post, “The beauty myth – an obsession with physical perfection that traps modern women in an endless cycle of hopelessness, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of flawless beauty. I chose to take care of myself because I want to, not to prove anything to anyone.”

However, in the latest episode of the Apple TV+ series “Dear…,” Selena Gomez admitted that the social media criticism did bother her. She said, “I was being shamed for gaining weight because of my lupus. I lied. I would go online, and I would post a picture of myself, and I would say, ‘it doesn’t matter.’ I’m not accepting what you’re saying,’ all the while being in the room posting that, crying my eyes out because nobody deserves to hear those things.”

She continued, “I was posting these things saying, ‘it doesn’t bother me,’ because I didn’t want it to bother other people who are experiencing the same thing: getting shamed for what they look like, who they are, who they love. I just think it’s so unfair. I don’t think that anybody deserves to feel less than.”

Gomez also reflected on her kidney transplant in 2017, which she received from her best friend Francia Raisa. She expressed immense gratitude for her friend’s selflessness, saying, “I will never, ever, ever be more in debt to a person than Francia. The idea of someone not even second-guessing to be a donor was unbelievably overwhelming. I got a tattoo with her, actually, which is the date I got the kidney transplant. I think it had to happen the way that it did. In order for me to get to where I am, I was meant to go through it to do something for others.”

After a brief social media hiatus, Gomez returned with a message encouraging kindness and consideration for others’ mental health. In a now-deleted TikTok comment under a video she shared on March 5, she wrote, “Please, please be kinder and consider others’ mental health. My heart has been heavy, and I only want good for everyone. All my love.”