These 10 Fascinating Facts About Selena Gomez Prove She's So Rare

In an intimate essay she penned for Time in October 2019, Selena revealed that her paternal grandparents (as well as her dad's older sister) were undocumented immigrants. "In the 1970s, my aunt crossed the border from Mexico to the United States hidden in the back of a truck," she wrote. "My grandparents followed, and my father was born in Texas soon after." Selena is incredibly appreciative of her family's bravery and initiative, because without it, she may not have been born a US citizen. "Undocumented immigration is an issue I think about every day," she added, "and I never forget how blessed I am to have been born in this country thanks to my family and the grace of circumstance."

During a February 2020 conversation with Bad Bunny, which was published in Dazed, Selena spoke about how proud she is of her Latin heritage and how, even though she primarily sings in English, she still feels like she represents Latinxs everywhere. "I have such an appreciation for my last name," she said. "I've rereleased a lot of music in Spanish as well, and that's something that's gonna happen a bit more. So there's a lot more I would love to do because I don't take it lightly. I'm very honored."

Despite the fact that she was once the most-followed person on Instagram, Selena posts infrequently and likes taking breaks from social media for her mental health. She even confessed to Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest during a June 2019 episode of Live With Kelly and Ryan that she doesn't have the Instagram app on her phone. "It would make me depressed," she said of Instagram. "It would make me feel not good about myself, and look at my body differently, and all kinds of stuff. So I actually don't have it on my phone. I have it on someone else's phone, and when I feel like I want to share something with my fans or just mess around with it, I do it then."

While chatting with Miley Cyrus in April 2020 on Miley's Bright Minded IG live stream, Selena revealed that receiving an official diagnosis of bipolar disorder allowed her to better understand herself. "When I have more information, it actually helps me. It doesn't scare me once I know it," she explained. " . . . 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."

Though Selena's mental health struggles certainly haven't been easy, she told WSJ. magazine in January 2020 that acknowledging those issues and seeking help was necessary for her personal growth. "I feel like I was supposed to go through everything I've gone through," she said. "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. My highs were really high, and my lows would take me out for weeks at a time." For her, getting diagnosed with bipolar and finding the right medication was life changing. "I realized that there was a way to get help and to find people that you trust," she added.

During her iHeartRadio release party for her third solo studio album, Rare, the music video for "Hands to Myself" unexpectedly played, and Selena felt embarrassed by it — especially because Gracie, her 6-year-old maternal half-sister, was in attendance. In a January 2020 Q&A with KIIS FM's JoJo Wright, Selena said that, after this incident, she vowed to no longer make "overtly sexual" music videos going forward. "I told my sister I will not be doing videos like that anymore," Selena recounted. "It's not really necessary, in my opinion."

Ahead of Rare's release, Selena got a dainty tattoo below her right ear to commemorate the album. While chatting with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro in January 2020, Selena explained why she chose to get the tattoo and what exactly "rare" means to her. "The word has meant so much more to me than just a title of a song," she said. "We live in a time where everything is based on your looks and social media and there are so many different channels telling people what they should look like, and how they should do this, do that. And I want to represent a person that is just saying, 'You are who are; you're unique and you're rare.'"

During the summer of 2017, Selena underwent a kidney transplant due to complications from lupus. In March 2018, her kidney donor and friend, Francia Raísa, revealed during an interview with W magazine that Selena's life-saving surgery actually almost killed her. "A few hours after our surgery, I woke up and had a text from her that said, 'I'm really scared,'" Francia recalled. "My kidney was very active, and when she turned, she broke an artery. They had to take [Selena] into emergency surgery and get a vein from her leg and build a new artery to keep my kidney in place. She could have died." Selena herself also revealed on Today in October 2017 that her surgery, which typically takes two hours, instead took six hours.

In January 2020, Selena confessed to Billboard that, before releasing her very personal album Rare, she often held her tongue rather than sharing her opinions and struggles, as she was afraid of alienating or insulting anyone. "I wouldn't want to say the wrong thing, and I wouldn't want people to think that I had any other motive, other than just being a kind person — though that is who I am and I am proud of that," she explained. "I was just done, you know? Just done being silent, and I felt like I deserved to have a moment for myself, after going through so much and throwing that all into this album."

As ambitious as Selena is, she told Harper's Bazaar in February 2018 that she actually avoids setting lofty goals for herself. "I don't really set goals 'cause I don't want to be disappointed if I don't reach them, but I do want to work on my music, too," she said. "My next album has been forever in the making. When people ask me why, I'm honest about it: It's because I haven't been ready. I mean, point-blank, I don't feel confident enough in where my music is yet. If that takes 10 years, then it takes 10 years. I don't care."