This Is the Reason Selena Gomez "Can't Wait" For People to Forget About Her
Selena Gomez recently returned from her months-long public hiatus with a hit song and a new romance with The Weeknd, but in her April Vogue interview with Rob Haskell, she opens up about the hurdles she's had to overcome to get to this point. The 13 Reasons Why producer, who said she's fallen off the radar to the point where only 17 people have her phone number now ("maybe two are famous"), is upfront about the toll fame has taken on her. "Look, I love what I do, and I'm aware of how lucky I am," she said. "But — how can I say this without sounding weird? I just really can't wait for people to forget about me." From why being the most followed person on Instagram isn't a good thing to how she managed to make it out of the Disney machine alive, this is one of Selena's most revealing interviews yet.
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On her public persona: "People so badly wanted me to be authentic, and when that happened, finally, it was a huge release. I'm not different from what I put out there. I've been very vulnerable with my fans, and sometimes I say things I shouldn't. But I have to be honest with them. I feel that's a huge part of why I'm where I am."
On her mental health during her tour: "Tours are a really lonely place for me. My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn't good enough, wasn't capable. I felt I wasn't giving my fans anything, and they could see it — which, I think, was a complete distortion."
On adjusting to her new audience: "I was so used to performing for kids . . . Suddenly I have kids smoking and drinking at my shows, people in their 20s, 30s, and I'm looking into their eyes, and I don't know what to say. I couldn't say, 'Everybody, let's pinky-promise that you're beautiful!' It doesn't work that way, and I know it because I'm dealing with the same sh*t they're dealing with. What I wanted to say is that life is so stressful, and I get the desire to just escape it. But I wasn't figuring my own stuff out, so I felt I had no wisdom to share. And so maybe I thought everybody out there was thinking, 'This is a waste of time.'"
On her 90-day stay at a rehab center: "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."
On her struggle to break out of the Disney mold: "For a guy there's a way to rebel that can work for you. But for a woman, that can backfire. It's hard not to be a cliché, the child star gone wrong. I did respect my fans and what I had, but I was also figuring out what I was passionate about and how far I was willing to go."
On being a workaholic: "I'm a late bloomer. I grew up around adults, but in terms of getting out, having friends — at times I really didn't know anything but my job."
On her incredible relationship with her mother, Mandy Teefey: "My mom gave up her whole life for me. Where we're from, you don't really leave. So when I started gaining all this success, there was a guilt that came with it. I thought, 'Do I deserve this?'"
On how therapy has changed her life: "I wish more people would talk about therapy. 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."
On her jaw-dropping social media presence: "As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out. It had become so consuming to me. It's what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn't want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn't want to care about. I always end up feeling like sh*t when I look at Instagram. Which is why I'm kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit."