Selena Gomez, who broke out on Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place, has talked a little about the dark side of growing up as a famous child star. But there was a turning point about ten years ago, she explained in candid detail to Business of Fashion. At that time, her fame became more about her personal relationships and looks.
“I started getting known for things that weren’t [related to] my work,” she said. “That’s when my passion started to really feel like it was going further and further away. And that scared me. When I was younger, it was all fun to me. When I did state fairs and 100 people would show up, I would be stoked. That was the best feeling in the world. But when I got older, I started to become exposed to the truth behind some stuff and that’s when it flipped a little bit.”
“I realized that, ‘Oh this is actually really hard, and kind of slimy in certain areas,’ and I didn’t realize that certain people wanted certain things from me. My confidence went through a lot with that.”
The sudden interest in her bikini body was one example: “I remember just feeling really violated when I was younger, even just being on the beach. I was maybe 15 or 16 and people were taking pictures—photographers,” she recalled. “I don’t think anyone really knew who I was. But I felt very violated and I didn’t like it or understand it, and that felt very weird, because I was a young girl and they were grown men. I didn’t like that feeling. Then, I would say the last season of my show, I was probably 18 years old, is when I felt like the flip happened. I didn’t feel like it was about my art as much. I was on the fourth season of the show, and I felt like I was outgrowing it. I wanted something different and obviously I fell in love [with then-boyfriend Justin Bieber] for the first time. There was all this stuff that was happening, and I didn’t know what to do.”
The discomfort led Gomez to take time to herself. Most notably, she’s ended two tours early: Stars Dance in 2013 to get treatment for lupus, and Revival last year, where she went to a treatment center for anxiety and depression. “I stopped and then I continued, because I realized that I needed to challenge myself,” she said. “Do I really love this? Is this worth it anymore? I would look at my crowd on tour and think, ‘Yes, this is worth it, right?’ But then I would look at myself in the mirror and I just felt like ‘I’ve had enough, I don’t know if I can go on anymore.’ And I stopped it for a second. But it didn’t mean that I didn’t love it, I just had to find what I was going to do with it. As long as I’m healthy and happy in my mind, I’m all about it.”
A strong, small friend group has supported Gomez through this journey—though the singer has let go of some people, too. “You are who you surround yourself with—100 percent,” she said. “If you’re around people who think that stuff is dumb, that think it’s ridiculous—‘You’re crazy! You’re fine!’—but you don’t feel that way, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate that. It’s a lonely journey to really figure out where all this stuff is coming from. And to detach from it. It becomes an addiction, it becomes a habit, retraining your mind to not go to these negative places when you say something wrong, do something wrong, when you wear a certain thing or represent a certain culture. But it is lonely, I had to lose a lot of people in my life to get there.”
“You have to figure out the people that are in your circle. I feel like I know everybody but have no friends,” she said with a laugh. “I have like three good friends that I can tell everything to, but I know everyone. I go anywhere and I’m like, ‘Hey guys, how’s it going?’ And it feels great to be connected to people, but having boundaries is so important. You have to have those few people that respect you, want the best for you and you want the best for them. It sounds cheesy, but it’s hard.”
