Demi and Selena: Spring Healing

Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez have been friends since they were kids, were seven years old when they first met on the set of Barney & Friends, remaining close through childhood and early adolescence. As teenagers, they both had their own Disney shows. For a whole generation of North American pre-teens, their friendship was the ideal – BFFS on television and during the early years of social media, often sharing videos of themselves hanging out, doing the cute and silly sh-t that young girls do.

And then it got weird, which is the world’s fault. They’re the same age, they were blowing up professionally alongside each other, which means they became aware of competition even though they weren’t competing. Plus the difficult transition from the teen to young adult years, made that much complicated by money and fame, in an entertainment industry becoming increasingly more online.

The lore is long and full of twists and turns, ups and downs, periods of reconciliation followed by frost. Both Demi and Selena, as we know, have had their own personal mental health struggles. Both of them, as we know, have seemed to find stability and contentment over the last two or three years. They also both got married last year, four months apart. Now, in their mid-30s, they’ve found their way back to each other.

Demi kicked off her It’s Not That Deep tour in Orlando last night, bringing out Joe Jonas as a surprise guest. This isn’t the first time she and Joe have publicly confirmed that it’s all good now so the bigger story is that Selena was at the concert. She shared photos of Demi backstage and with a sweet message on IG stories saying that she was “blown away” by Demi’s vocals and called it “one of the best shows”.

The money shot though is the new photo of the two of them together – the first photo of them together in almost ten years.

A decade is a long time. And the decade between your mid-20s and your mid-30s is significant. Obviously for these two women, who were unprepared for how they would inevitably be shaped by fame and celebrity, have been through it, and much of it was sh-tty. But, encouragingly, there’s clearly also been growth. So while they may have changed to the point where they might not be as close as they used to be – talking every day, seeing each other all the time, etc – they seem to have figured out how to preserve their shared history in a way that’s right for who they are now. This picture, then, is a document of healing. It’s spring and the girls are good. 

Attached - Demi arriving at LAX the other day.