The Ballad of Selena Gomez

The Ballad of Selena Gomez
After a long journey through illness and heartbreak, the former teen star emerges as a full-fledged artist with her first album in four years.

Even before the waiter offers a menu, Selena Gomez lays her cards on the table. “I feel like I was supposed to go through everything I’ve gone through,” she says as she takes a seat at a rooftop restaurant in Los Angeles. “I had low self-esteem, and that’s something I work on continuously. But I feel so empowered because I’ve gained so much knowledge about what was going on mentally,” she adds. Soon after, she smiles mischievously and says, “Let’s talk about all the stuff I’m not supposed to.” She’s dressed like her 1990s style icon, Jennifer Aniston’s character Rachel Green, from Friends, wearing a shrunken ribbed cardigan over a plaid sundress. “Of course, there were a few moments in my life when I felt like, Why? Why me?” she says. “But now I look at it as, At least I can relate to more people.”

What Gomez has gone through so far in her 27 years is anything but relatable. There’s the global fame: The Disney child star turned singer-songwriter-actor-producer has more than 163 million Instagram followers. The physical health problems: She was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus in 2013, then developed a complication called lupus nephritis, requiring a kidney transplant in 2017. The mental health issues: She’s openly discussed her struggles with anxiety and sought help for depression. And there’s the love life that has inspired a zillion tabloid covers. Her first love was pop star Justin Bieber, whom she dated on and off for several years, and who married model Hailey Baldwin in 2018. She was also linked to musician Abel Tesfaye, known as the Weeknd, for about a year in 2017. There have been hit records, world tours, a fashion campaign with Louis Vuitton, collaborations with Puma and Coach, an ambassadorship with Unicef and a membership in Michelle Obama’s “voting squad,” part of the former first lady’s effort to get more young people active in the democratic process. (Gomez says she accepted Obama’s invitation before Obama even finished asking her.)

All these highs and lows have led to her new album, Rare, her most personal musical expression to date. “This is the first time I’ve heard her truly channel the details of her emotional experience,” says Gomez’s close friend Taylor Swift. “I just thought, Wow, she’s finally allowing herself to let other people know things aren’t always OK. You can be vulnerable and lonely and independent and strong and brave and scared all at once.” And, it turns out, fans relate: One of the tracks Gomez released in October, “Lose You to Love Me,” became the first song ever to go No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, iTunes and Rolling Stone charts simultaneously.

“I’ve never cared about being No. 1,” she says. She’s equally unenthusiastic about society’s other success metrics, including likes, retweets and comments sections in general. “I took a break off Insta for a year, maybe a year and a half,” she says. “I’d rather stay away from anything that’s going to make me feel like s—.” But even music charts? “Honestly, anything in the internet world,” she says.