14 DAY TRIAL // In April this year, Selena Gomez became the latest celebrity to find herself a target of online fat-shaming, after paparazzi photos of her on vacation in Mexico were made public. That was the first time she ever dealt with this kind of attention and the experience was horrible, she admits in a new interview.
Selena has a new album out now, “Revival,” her second studio material as a solo artist. She’s been promoting it with a variety of press interviews and among the topics she discusses is also the pain that came with being fat-shamed.
“I’ve been working in therapy”
For starters, we should note that Selena Gomez was never anywhere close to “fat.” She was carrying a few extra pounds, but if it hadn’t been for her celebrity status, the weight gain wouldn’t have earned her a second glance on the street in the real world, let alone the kind of vitriol it generated online.
And there was a lot of that, Selena tells Us Weekly. There was enough of it for her to need therapy because she simply didn’t know how to cope with the situation.
“I've been working in therapy,” she says. “I'd land at the airport and people would yell out, ‘You're fat!’ It was awful. I've been working since I was seven. This was the first year I ever dealt with anyone talking about my body.”
As she admitted to Billboard this week, this attention on her body had twice the negative impact on her, since the weight gain was caused by her treatment for Lupus. She even had to undergo chemotherapy for it, so having to deal with this kind of criticism while battling health issues and not being free to talk about them must have felt like hell.
Selena is back, stronger than ever
The Instagram photo below was posted by Selena as conversation about her being “fat” was reaching a peak online. She explains for the same publication that, while she was plagued by insecurity at the time she posted it, she meant it to mean that she was ok with gaining weight and that she didn’t think the number on the scales represented who she was as a person.
Because she could never talk freely about what she was going through behind closed doors, she chose to pour all those emotions into her music. In fact, the Mexico vacation doubled as a brainstorming session for the album that would later become “Revival.”
The title is no coincidence either: it means Selena is back, stronger than ever, ready to leave her mark on the world with what she calls her most personal release so far.
“Revival” is out as of yesterday, October 8.
I love being happy with me yall #theresmoretolove 😂 A photo posted by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Apr 16, 2015 at 5:39pm PDT