Nightingale of our times who had overcome - Selena Gomez

#selenagomez

A brief introduction

Selena Gomez is one of the most popular and successful actresses and singers on Earth. She has been in the spotlight since she was a child. Her skills were excellent enough to launch her as a child star on TV. She was a very cute child and fondly loved by her viewers. Her career has only climbed upwards in the years since hit the screens. Possibly, there are people in every single country who knows Selena Gomez today. She has been a famous figure in the entertainment industry throughout the 2010s decade. She is beautiful, presentable and talented in the entertainment world. She chose the right career and always turned out to be a heartthrob for millions of her fans and viewers worldwide.

Real name : Selena Marie Gomez

Screen name : Selena Gomez

Born : July 22, 1992

Height : 5 foot 4 inches (5'4")

Status : In a relationship with Benny Blanco

Parents : Ricardo Joel Gomez (father) and Mandy Teefey (mother)

Siblings : Gracie and Victoria (half-sisters)

Career highlight : Pop music

Selena Gomez's sparkling career

She was born in Grand Prairie, Texas (USA) in the year 1992. So, she is an American citizien. She was born on July 22. She started her acting career at the very young age of only 7. She began starring in the children's TV series 'Barney & Friends', which played on TV from 2002 upto 2004. She then went on to appear in the Disney Channel series 'Wizards of Waverly Place'. Her character on the show was called Alex Russo. This TV series aired between the years 2007 to 2012.

During her time on Wizards of Waverly Place, Selena had also begun to pursue a career in music. It stood out as a promising future to her. So she took it up seriously and started making songs. She released her debut music album titled 'Kiss & Tell' in the year 2009. The album was a commercial success for her! It had reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart too.

After a successful debut, she began to be active in the music scene. She went solo without associating with a music group or collaborations. In other words, she became a soloist. Selena has since then released 4 more albums. They are When the Sun Goes Down (2011), Revival (2015), Rare (2020) and Revelación (2022). Some of her famous hit songs from these albums are Good For You, Hands To Myself, Lose You To Love Me and Same Old Love. These songs shot her to stardom very quickly.

She was also a pro-Spanish user. Her album Revelación (2022) was in the Spanish language. It got her nominated in the Grammy Awards for being extensively successful in Latin music. Eventually, she was offered collaborations from other popular artists. She was able to release even more enjoyable songs from these collaborations. Some of these catchy songs are Calm Down, It Ain't me, Taki Taki, We Don't Talk Anymore and Wolves. These went on to become her best sellers.

She has also acted in a number of movies. Some of the biggies are Spring Breakers (2012), Hotel Transylvania (2012-2022) and The Dead Don't Die (2019). If you have seen these movies, you know how great hits they had become. Besides movies, she had turned into a producer herself. She began producing TV shows and also starring in them.

She produced a "teen drama" series called '13 Reasons Why'. This series played on TV through the years 2017 to 2020. Then, in the year 2019, she produced a documentary titled 'Living Undocumented'. It was a documentary made on 8 families who illegally migrated into the United States and were living like US citizens. During the COVID pandemic...in the year 2020...she started a cooking show called 'Selena + Chef' which ran till the year 2023. In the year 2021, she produced a comedy and mystery series titled 'Only Murders In The Building'. As of today in 2024, this show is still in broadcast.

All these ventures have earned her awards from both the Music and TV industry. She has also received several nominations. Truly, her talent is very remarkable for a young lady.

From her younger days

In addition to her acting and singing career, she dove into the business world. She began making products for consumers. Today, she is also a successful businesswoman. She has her own clothing line, a fragrance line and a production company. One of her businesses is a cosmetic company called 'Rare Beauty', which has achieved a huge value of $2 billion USD today.

Rare Beauty's portal

She is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Being a public figure, she uses her fame and influence to advcate for causes that affect children and people. She has also been largely outspoken about her own struggles with mental and physical health. She underwent a period of depression in the last few recent years. Therefore, she started a non-profit funding programme called 'Rare Impact Fund'. Rare Impact Fund plans to raise millions of dollars for mental health causes and driving it's awareness.

Selena is a role model for many young people across the world. She is very talented, successful and passionate about her work. She is also a down-to-the-earth individual who is not afraid to speak her mind freely. As of 2024, she happens to be the most-followed woman on Instagram. She has over 400 million followers on the platform! She publishes various updates about herself on it.

Highlights of her extensive career

Here is a list or a short peek into Selena Gomez's public life:

• Acting - Selena began her acting career at the age of 7 by appearing in the children's TV series Barney & Friends. She then went on to star in the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place, which aired from 2007 to 2012. Selena also starred in the movies Spring Breakers (2012), Hotel Transylvania (2012) and The Dead Don't Die (2019). Her series 'Only Murders In The Building' has been running from 2021 to the present.
• Singing - Selena began her music career in the year 2009 with the release of her debut album 'Kiss & Tell'. The album was a commercial success, hitting number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Selena has since then released 4 more albums named When the Sun Goes Down (2011), Revival (2015), Rare (2020) and Revelación (2022).
• Business - Selena is also a businesswoman whose businesses are running very successfully. She has her own clothing line, a fragrance line and a production company. Her highest revenue generating business is currently valued at $2 billion USD.
• Activism - Selena is an activist for mental health awareness. She talks about it and is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for it. She makes sure that mental problems are talked about and never goes out of topic. She pushes for it's awareness across the world. It's a very important that a popular celebrity like herself is advocating for it is incredible. Working with UNICEF, she has been able to travel various countries for promoting humanitarian causes and raise funds for their advancement.
• Philanthropy - She is an active philanthropist and generously donates parts of her earnings towards the goodness of mankind. She has not only set up non-profit funding programmes but also donating to various useful causes. Partnering with multiple charity organizations, she is able to do her best for their beneficiaries.
• Fund-raising - Selena helps raise funds for various humanitarian organizations across African countries, Burkino Faso, Central Africa, Cameroon, Chile, Ghana, Mauritania, Puerto Rico, Togo, Vietnam etc. She personally visits these locations so that their causes become influential enough. By raising her voice for their causes, she is able to attract other philanthropists to help out the affected and the locals.
• Public-speaking - Being an influential individual, she is also a public speaker at important public events like charities, causes, fund-raising etc. She is able to deliver insights from experience and partnering in public works. Other influential people across industries and politics also voice their support in her favour. There are audiences who want to hear and learn from Selena Gomez, after all that she had suffered in life and overcome. Her words provide inspiration to children and women alike. She gets regularly invited to speak on occasions to provide value to the audience. 

Selena Gomez's impact on the world

Selena Gomez is a role model for many young people around the world. Being talented, successful and very passionate about her work, she is also a down-to-earth person who strongly speaks her mind. There is a lesson of humbleness to be adopted from her. Selena is using all her social-media platform to speak out about important public issues such as bullying and mental health.

At one point of time, she was called a triple threat for being highly successful in the careers of acting, business and music. She was even fluent in Spanish which made her very popular in the Latin world. Due to her many abilities, she was able to earn and win several honours from reputed groups across various industries. She was able to become one of the most powerful icons in entertainment, especially as a women.

Being a big global celebrity, it becomes important on her part to speak of issues that affect mankind. She has been kind enough to play a role in advocating pressing causes. Her highest support goes for anti-bullying campaigns and mental health awareness. Being a victim of depression herself, she caught of it's importance early on. She is also a strong supporter of the LGBTQA+ community. During the pride month of June every year, she lends out her support to the community herself and by partnering with social groups. She writes to people of the community about supporting their life choices and love. She donates funds to the community via her non-profit fundings, especially from Rare Impact Funding.

She also gets invited to public events to speak on these causes. Being a public speaker, she is able to inspire the general public, donors and partners alike to work for the advancement of life and society. Selena is very impactful in discussions regarding bullying, humanity, mental health, motivation, racism, social media and several other serious topics. It is very important that global personalities keep such kind of topics in talk. It is because of her insights that she gets welcomed into public events and spaces to offer her help.

Selena also came forward to talk about the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflicts. Taking no sides and clearly intending to be neutral, she pressed for an urgent humanitarian action. Being a Christian, she has asked the world to pray for peace in the Gaza region. She is concerned about the casualties on both sides of the war. Meanwhile, she also promotes the cause of anti-abortion and has urged men to take a stand against abortion. Selena is a critic of racism in the society. She calls for equality among all people and be a constructive civil participants. She is strong supporter of Black Lives Matter campaign and speaks staunchly against all kinds of bullying and racism in the society.

During the COVID pandemic of 2020, she urged governments everywhere to distribute the COVID-19 vaccines. Almost all celebrities did this too and Selena was also involved in lending a voice. In 2021, she participated in a concert called 'VAX Life : The Concert To Reunite The World'. It was conducted in a promotion to distribute COVID-19 vaccines across the world via the COVAX programme.

She is inspiring for many people esp. the youth. She is a reminder that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. She is also a reminder that it is very important to be yourself and to never give up on your dreams. More power to her.

Life and struggles

Although life started very well for Gomez, it wasn't easy for her going into adulthood. The child star was bogged down by many problems later on. Though she is heavily involved in world music, she was raised as a Christian. She was brought up as a Catholic Christian. Selena has sung songs for the Christian congregation called 'Hillsongs'. She has also performed praise and worship concerts for them. She continues to be a member of one of their churches in California, USA. As per Selena Gomez, she isn't involved much in everyday Christian practices but is trying to keep her connections with God and hold her faith.

Selena has been unlucky in love so far. We do not know what's on her mind regarding the future of her relationship status. Her first relationship was with Nick Jonas (who is married to Priyanka Chopra) in the year 2008 when she was just 16 years old. Then, she was in a 8-year long relationship with the Canadian singer Justin Bieber. It was an unsteady relationship where the couple kept breaking and patching up all the time. However, alongside in 2015, she started dating DJ Zedd. He was a German-Russian music artist. They parted ways the same year. Then, she was in a 1-month relationship with The Weeknd in 2017. As of today, she is in a confirmed relationship with an American producer named Benny Blanco.

Her real problems began in the years between 2012 and 2014. She was diagnosed with the dangerous condition of Lupus. If you do not know what Lupus is, it is a condition where our body's immune system starts attacking our own body's tissues. It's considered to be a case of mistaken identity where the immune system erroneously attacks healthy cells and goes on to see treat them as hostile. The causes or what triggers Lupus are unknown and there is no cure for it. It is a life-threating disease. Although there is no cure for Lupus, there are still treatments to alleviate it a bit for a while based on the symptoms they show. A long-term treatment for Lupus can also bring it's side effects. Selena struggles through these years of Lupus. She seems to be doing fine for now but must surely be undergoing treatments for Lupus.

In the year 2017, she went AWOL from public life for many months. She came forward in the month of September that year with an explanation why. She had to undergo a kidney transplant surgery, since her's had failed. Her friend and actress Francia Raisa donated one of her kidneys to Selena Gomez. However, it wasn't a "smooth-sailing" kidney transplant. An artery around the area tore open leading to blood loss. She was ushered in for an emergency surgery to save her life. It was a successful surgery. A vein from the leg had to be borrowed in order to stitch back the broken artery. Thanks to her friend and the incredible work of emergency services personnel.

All these incidents put her out of the limelight for a long time. She had begun developing anxiety and depression following these life-altering events. She remains outspoken about her declining mental health though. In the year 2020, she revealed to the public that she has a bipolar condition now. It's a dangerous condition if left untreated. Following this, she has also revealed in the year 2022 that, in the month of November 2018, she had suffered an episode of psychosis once. She hadn't revealed it back then.

She also contracted COVID-19 in the year 2022. She was to appear on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She had to cancel her appearance on the show for a later date after being tested positive for COVID-19.

Selena Gomez's official signature

Today, she seems to be healthy and has also made comebacks here and there. She is indeed a success story. A story of fighting to survive the odds. Although she had a good beginning in life, she was thrown into unexpected problems as an adult. She had the courage to overcome and carry on working in life. She is determined to help her fellow human beings with both deeds and words. She has very well demonstrated her willingness for it. Her acts of philanthropy, despite suffering so many expensive medical conditions, tells a lot about her as a person. We can only wish the best for her in future and hope for more successes to come her way. It'd be amazing to see her fully healed!

Conclusion

Selena Gomez is a talented and successful person. One might want to know her story. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from her life. She started working young and built up a bright career. She then had health issues, relationship issues, mental health issues and so on. As a young person, she never once quit. With support of family, friends and well-wishers, she trying to make her comeback. Today, she shines as someone who overcame the odds and made a comeback. Her struggles couldn't drown such a beautiful soul.

Here is a small summary about Selena Gomez:

• She was born on July 22, 1992 in Grand Prairie (Texas, USA).
• She has two younger half-sisters named Gracie and Victoria.
• She is of Mexican and Italian descent.
• She is fluent in Spanish.
• She is a devout Christian.
• She is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
• She has been diagnosed with anxiety and lupus and underwent a kidney transplant.
• She has been in a relationship with Justin Bieber, Nick Jonas and The Weeknd.
• She is currently dating Benny Blanco.

Hope you've enjoyed reading a bit about Selena Gomez. What are your first memories about Selena? Have you seen her TV shows as a child? Do you remember her show character? What is your favourite song(s) of her? Do they play her music at your home or your car? Do you have her collections? Please do share your fondest memories of her below.

Disclaimer : All the pictures in this post is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.