Selena Gomez’s Latest Response To Being Body Shamed On Instagram Is So Necessary

Sel has always been honest about her health struggles, but now she’s opening up even more about her experience with body image following her battle with lupus. Selena Gomez’s body shaming response aired on a video podcast called Giving Back Generation with Raquelle Stevens this week, and her comments about social media and cyberbullies are eye-opening. Not to mention, her honesty about their impact—even as a celebrity—is refreshing and sorely needed.

In her segment of the podcast, Selena explains when she started experiencing issues with her weight. “I have lupus and deal with kidney issues and high blood pressure so I deal with a lot of health issues, and for me, that’s when I really started noticing more of the body image stuff,” she explained. While it’s not solely her battle with lupus that affects her weight gain, she says, “it’s the combination of all of it—it’s the medication I have to take for the rest of my life and it depends on even the month, to be honest.”

“So for me, I really noticed when people started attacking me for that,” she revealed. Since the start of her lupus journey, Selena was quick to shut down people who body-shamed her. “In reality, that’s just my truth,” she continued on the podcast. “I fluctuate. It depends what’s happening in my life.”

Nonetheless, she couldn’t deny that her loss of control phased her. “That got to me big time. I think for me, that really messed me up for a bit.”

Source: Instagram

Nowadays, Selena is far more conscious about how social media can have a negative impact on her mental health, and she takes active steps to avoid the toxic corners of platforms like Instagram. “When I make an effort to post on social media or do what I’m doing, it’s important for me to make sure it 100 percent authentic, and once I post it, I post it. That’s it.”

“I see so many beautiful girls and amazing different characters and then they’re just demolished by an image that they’re trying to chase,” she concluded. “They’re wanting to be a completely different person but that’s not what’s inside of them, you know? But I get it. I look at other people’s pages—or I used to—and I’m like, okay, ‘I need to fix myself.'”

Well, no more. We can all take a nod from Selena and stop comparing ourselves.