Selena Gomez is opening up about the insecurities she’s dealt with as a result of years of body-shaming.
“I got stung by a person saying I was fat. Why is that [emotion] coming up?” Gomez, 33, told Allure in a cover story published on Tuesday, September 9. “I’ve dealt with a lot of weight issues in my life, and that’s something I’m very sensitive to.”
Gomez added that she seeks help through dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which is “a type of talk therapy for people who experience emotions very intensely,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. DBT helped the Only Murders in the Buildindbt g actress unpack her insecurities.
“Oh, now I understand, that’s stemming from that one time when I was going through some medical stuff and I had gained weight,” she said, describing the therapy technique as “peeling away layers” and connecting the dots.
“[Some therapists provide] little cards [you can pull out] when you feel a certain type of emotion, with questions to help guide you through understanding it,” Gomez continued. “You just definitely have to be willing to do the work, and that part can be tricky.”
However, Gomez added, “I finally feel like I’m in a place where I don’t need to be apologetic for every single thing that I do.”
Gomez was diagnosed with lupus in 2014 and underwent a kidney transplant and chemotherapy. In 2023, she addressed comments about her body, explaining that her lupus medication causes her weight to fluctuate.
“When I’m taking it, I tend to hold a lot of water weight, and that happens very normally. When I’m off of it, I tend to kind of lose weight,” she said in a TikTok Live at the time. “Yeah, we have days where maybe we feel like s***, but I would much rather be healthy and take care of myself. My medications are important, and I believe that they’re what helps me.”
Gomez has also opened up about her struggles with anxiety and depression, as well as her bipolar disorder diagnosis, which she revealed in 2020.
“Recently, I went to one [of the] best mental hospitals in the world … and I discussed that, after years of going through a lot of different things, I realized that I was bipolar,” she said on Miley Cyrus’ “Bright Minded” Instagram Live show. “When I have more information, it actually helps me, it doesn’t scare me once I know it. … When I finally said what I was going to say, I wanted to know everything about it and it took the fear away.”
Gomez continued, “When I was younger, I was scared of thunderstorms and my mom bought me all these books on thunderstorms and she was like, ‘The more you educate yourself on this, the more that you’re not going to be afraid.’ It completely worked. That’s something that helps me big time.”
Gomez later told Elle in 2021 that getting her diagnosis felt like a “huge weight lifted off” her shoulders.
“I could take a deep breath and go, ‘OK, that explains so much,’” she added.
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