Selena Gomez admits losing 'teenager's body' left her 'embarrassed,' led to relentless body shaming

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Selena Gomez has been subjected to intense body-shaming over the years, with her fluctuating weight used as tabloid fodder. 

Gomez gained international fame from her time on the Disney Channel, but her life, and body, significantly changed from her lupus diagnosis while she was maturing into a young woman. In 2017, at age 24, she had a kidney transplant, which left her body scarred. Gomez admits that after surgery, during a magazine fitting, she realized she no longer "had a teenager's body."

"None of the sample sizes were fitting, and that would make me feel embarrassed," she said in an interview with Fast Company. "Although how unrealistic is it to expect a normal woman’s body not to change?" 

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Selena Gomez says she noticed her body had started to change when she was not fitting into the sample sizes for a magazine fitting. (Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for MTV)

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After that fitting, Gomez was photographed in a bikini in Australia. Her scars were visible, and her haters had a field day. At the same time, she was enduring a public breakup with longtime love, Justin Bieber. The combination of the two was overwhelming, causing her to step away from social media.

"I had just gotten my heart broken. I didn’t need to see what everyone was doing," she admitted. "Then there were those moments of not feeling positive about how I looked because of what I’d see on Instagram. ‘Wow, I wish my body looked like that,'" she remembered thinking.

Selena Gomez was dealing with several changes all at once around 2018. (Michael Buckner/Billboard via Getty Images)

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Gomez was also facing challenges with her mental health. She would later be diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

"I went through a really hard season. It was my highs and my lows, and I didn’t know what to do, so I couldn’t control it. I would want to cancel things. It was just a tormented feeling. That’s why, when I found out my diagnosis, it was just, ‘Oh, okay, I feel a bit relieved, I understand a bit more.’ I got second opinions. I went to doctors. I’m fortunate enough to be able to have people who can help me survive every day," she explained.

Selena Gomez says finding out her bipolar disorder diagnosis was really helpful for her. (Matt Winkelmeyer/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

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Gomez's decision to be transparent about her private battles was something she did for herself. "I grew up being a people pleaser," she said. "I had a responsibility at a very young age — young people were looking up to me. I didn’t know who I was. Having that responsibility would make me walk on eggshells a lot. I thought maybe it would be damaging to tell people who I am. It started to become a threat that freaked me out."

"Well, if you’re not right, then you can’t work," she added. 

Gomez has found her pace, though, and it is certainly working. Besides her acting and singing career, Fast Company shared that her cosmetics company, Rare Beauty, is expected to exceed $300 million in sales for 2023.