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Selena Gomez has been an icon for many, and not just because of her fantastic acting and pop-star career. The Lose You to Love Me singer is an icon when it comes to championing body positivity, feminism, and battling chronic illness while maintaining a full-time career in the limelight.
Gomez has been an open book about many aspects of her life, be it her mental health or shutting down brutal body shamers. Fans have seen over the years that the singer is not one to shy away from expressing her opinion. This is one of the reasons why she has built such a strong and candid relationship with her fans as well.
As it happens, many Selena Gomez interviews often tend to be emotional due to the star opening up about her struggles with Lupus or her mental health. These interviews helped fans understand the deeper side of the always bubbly Selena Gomez that does not meet the eye at first glance.
Vogue and other 2 emotional Selena Gomez interviews that will be hard to forget
1) “Selena Gomez gets real about anxiety—and how therapy changed everything” - Vogue
During the Vogue interview, Selena Gomez had said:
"We girls, we’re taught to be almost too resilient, to be strong and sexy and cool and laid-back; the girl who’s down,...We also need to feel allowed to fall apart."
This comment was made keeping in mind how celebrities are always under extreme public scrutiny, making fans wonder that is not every day that one sees a star being so open about their mental health and the importance of therapy. During this interview with Vogue, Selena became an open book and bared her soul.
The Rare Beauty mogul revealed that she had canceled her Revival tour prior to the interview. Revealing how her consistent panic attacks and anxiety had been the reason for her to cancel the tour, she said:
“I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting on-stage, or right after leaving the stage”
To get out of that tough situation, Selena Gomez decided to seek help with therapy. She revealed that she had even given up her cell phone for three months to take part in 90 days of individual and group therapy. She even said it was one of the best decisions she had made.
“You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls. Real people who couldn’t give two sh*ts about who I was, who were fighting for their lives. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done.”
She now swears in DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and says that it has immensely helped her improve her depression.
“DBT has completely changed my life. I wish more people would talk about therapy.”
This was indeed a powerful moment for Selena Gomez to destigmatize therapy and mental health.
2) “Selena Gomez on recapturing her public image, mental health and her no. 1 album”- NPR
The timing of this interview collided with one of the most eventful periods of Selena Gomez’s life. Her Revival tour, followed by the launch of Rare Beauty, not to mention her Lupus, mental health, and two high-profile breakups, made her the center of the media. During all of this, Selena Gomez sat down for an interview with NPR and gave her fans a glance at her life and struggles. Here, a particular comment that struck many fans was:
"You are who are; you're unique and you're rare."
Within the first few questions of the interview, she put it across bluntly that one of the reasons why she has started being so open to the media is because someone else would be telling her narrative otherwise. She wanted to take control and claim her voice back.
“The reason why I've become so vocal about the trials and tribulations of my life is that people were already going to narrate that for me. I wasn't going to have a choice because of how fast everything moves now. And most of the time, yes, it's not true, or it's an embellished version of what the truth is. I want to be able to tell my story the way that I want to tell it. “
Selena Gomez also opened up about her struggles with mental health, giving a vivid picture of her journey with depression and anxiety:
“I'm on the proper medication that I need to be on, even as far as my mental health. I fully believe in just making sure you check in with your doctors or therapist. [Taking care of mental health — ] that's forever. That's something I will have to continue to work on. Yes, I don't think I just magically feel better. I have days where it is hard for me to get out of bed, or I have major anxiety attacks.”
Additionally, the pop singer talked about finding closure through Lose You To Love Me and how the song was not meant to be hateful but to express her way of turning a new chapter in life:
"I felt I didn't get a respectful closure, and I had accepted that, but I know I needed some way to just say a few things that I wish I had said. It's not a hateful song; it's a song that is saying — I had something beautiful and I would never deny that it wasn't that.
She continued:
"It was very difficult and I'm happy it's over. And I felt like this was a great way to just say, you know, it's done, and I understand that, and I respect that, and now here I am stepping into a whole other chapter."
Selena Gomez also spoke about the emotional abuse that she had to suffer when she felt like a “victim to certain abuse.” She further clarified that she didn't want to be seen as a victim and affirmed that she found a way “to just walk through it with as much grace as possible.”
3) “Selena Gomez wasn’t sure she was ready to tell this story” - Rolling Stone
Selena Gomez has been through hell and back with her chronic illness Lupus alongside a myriad of mental health issues like bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety. However, she is not someone who would succumb to her conditions and silently deal with them. In fact, she opened up about it with Rolling Stone in an interview that made many dealing with similar issues feel like they were not alone.
Opening up about her bipolar disorder, Selena Gomez described how it is like living with it:
“It would start with depression, then it would go into isolation. Then it just was me not being able to move from my bed. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. My friends would bring me food because they love me, but none of us knew what it was. Sometimes it was weeks I’d be in bed, to where even walking downstairs would get me out of breath.”
She also mentioned that although she never attempted suicide, she did contemplate it quite a few times in her life:
“I thought the world would be better if I wasn’t there,” she says matter-of-factly.”
In addition, she opened up about the trials and tribulations of a life that did not exactly follow her teenage vision. Selena Gomez had a perfect image conjured for when she would turn 25, but when the reality fell short, it was hard for her to cope:
“I grew up thinking I would be married at 25. It wrecked me that I was nowhere near that — couldn’t be farther from it. It was so stupid, but I really thought my world was over.”
In 2018, she apparently had an episode of psychosis where she spent months in treatment facilities dealing with paranoia. Gomez said that she did not know if or when she would break out of her psychosis, but she said she was slowly “walking out of psychosis.” However, with her psychosis episode came a lot of medication that took the core of her life and personality. Like being suspended in limbo, she felt like she was just “gone.”
“It was just that I was gone. There was no part of me that was there anymore.”
Selena Gomez has come a long way since her interviews on her struggles. She co-produced the show 13 Reasons Why and got a matching semicolon tattoo with the cast that is a symbol of solidarity to people struggling and overcoming depression and suicidal ideation.
The pop singer then started the Rare Impact Fund, which aims to raise $100 million to introduce mental health curriculums in American schools and destigmatize mental health issues. She also visited the White House and is doing a fantastic job promoting awareness.
Selena Gomez is easily one of the strongest celebrities out there. Surgeon Vivek Murthy, who works with Selena Gomez, told Rolling Stone:
“There’s something very powerful in what she’s doing, not just for other people, but for Selena herself.”
She is a fighter and does not accept defeat easily. This mentality of hers has been reflected in her interviews and connects with the fans.
