Selena Gomez is featured in the April 2017 issue of VOGUE. It’s her first time on the cover of American VOGUE. People say often that Selena looks eternally girlish. It’s her baby face. I love her baby face. That Anna Wintour decided that she was ready for VOGUE though would suggest that that image is changing. Google just told me that she turns 25 in July. Did this sneak up on you the way it snuck up on me?
And yet Selena has always insisted that what was going on inside of her wasn't necessarily represented by what she looks like. She says as much during the interview:
“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.”
We’ve talked about that often – the reality of growing up in the business, mature in ways a teenager shouldn’t necessarily have to know and, at the same time, stunted in areas a non-famous teenager would have already navigated. And that’s part of why she has struggled. It’s a struggle she’s talks openly about for this profile, addressing her mental health issues and how she’s coped – and sometimes not coped – with anxiety and depression. It’s an important conversation and it’s important that Selena Gomez, the most followed person on Instagram, is having it. We have much work to do to remove the stigma around mental health so that more people can get help, so that more people can empathise with the experience of those who need it.
Selena is promoting her Netflix series 13 Reasons Why which she executive-produced. Other than that, however, she has nothing immediate on her schedule. The album is coming along but she says there’s no rush. She’s been working with Coach but that partnership isn’t locking her down day to day. For now she’s going to therapy 5 days a week and hanging out with people who are mostly not celebrities… with the exception, of course, of her boyfriend, The Weeknd, although she declines to discuss their relationship because “everything she has said about her relationships in the past has come back to bite her, and that she will never do it again”.
But here is where the habits of fame and celebrity never die. Because even while she claims to be trying to let go, to not focus so much on social media, and “fantasises about disappearing from social media altogether”, it’s not like she hasn’t been playing on social media, as recently as this week when she and Abel let us know that she raided his closet. It’s a safe place to pretend ignorance though because they can always say they were just doing their own thing and people came to their own conclusions and no one can tell them what they did or didn’t intend. But then how does a quote like this go over, at the very end of the piece?
“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.”
Ok… but … you’re on the cover of VOGUE! Click here to read the full article and to see more photos.
