Selena Gomez has 110 million Instagram followers, which to most rising Instagram stars, that’s the dream. But for her, the popularity and spotlight as well as going from a teen sensation to a young woman caused her to have a mental breakdown.
“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,” says Gomez to Vogue.
“I’ve cried on stage more times than I can count, and I’m not a cute crier,” she says. Last summer, after the North American and Asian legs of her “Revival” tour, with more than 30 concerts remaining, she abruptly canceled her tour and checked into a psychiatric facility in Tennessee.
“Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she explains. “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. I was so used to performing for kids. At concerts, I used to make the entire crowd raise up their pinkies and make a pinky promise never to allow anybody to make them feel that they weren’t good enough. 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 shit 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.”
She’s also taken a break from social media and if you see her posting, it’s probably her assistant. “As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out,” Gomez says. “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 shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”
It seems like Selena’s rise to fame has taken a toll on her health, but she still loves what she does. She even has a mini series on Netflix called 13 Reasons Why and has several films under her belt. “Look, I love what I do, and I’m aware of how lucky I am, but—how can I say this without sounding weird? I just really can’t wait for people to forget about me.” Well, it might be difficult for her fans to forget about her if she keeps working so much, but we’re glad she’s doing better and glad that she’s taken some time to address her health.