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The hypersuccessful, happily-in-love billionaire actress the internet loves to hate

The simple reason Selena Gomez makes people online so mad.

Selena Gomez at the 40th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 9, 2025. in Santa Barbara, California. Presley Ann/Getty Images for DAOU Vineyards

Selena Gomez at the 40th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 9, 2025. in Santa Barbara, California. Presley Ann/Getty Images for DAOU Vineyards

Kyndall Cunningham is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media.

There are three things guaranteed in life: death, taxes, and Selena Gomez pissing off the internet. 

The latest instance occurred on January 27, when Gomez posted (and quickly deleted) an Instagram Story of herself crying in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including increased ICE raids and mass deportations. “I’m so sorry,” said Gomez, who’s half-Mexican and whose paternal grandparents came to the United States undocumented. “All my people are getting attacked, the children. I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything. I promise.”

It wasn’t an uncommon sentiment to see online at the time, or from Gomez, who has advocated for DREAMers and better immigration policies. She was also a co-executive producer in the 2019 Netflix docuseries Living Undocumented. Still, from one of the internet’s most unlikely but repeatedly controversial figures, the emotional outpouring didn’t quite land — even among those who might have shared the same feelings. Some critics claimed Gomez, a heavily followed billionaire, could’ve done more to help at-risk immigrants than post a video. Others suggested she was a hypocrite for acting in the controversial Oscar-nominated film Emilia Pérez, which has been lambasted for its sensational depiction of the Mexican border.

MAGA, including two Trump-appointed officials, inevitably joined the chorus of boos, denouncing Gomez’s sympathy for so-called criminals. A former Republican Senate candidate tweeted that she should be deported.

It’s an unusual feat, making polar-opposite sides of the internet equally furious over the handling of an issue like deportation. And yet it’s the kind of fury Gomez repeatedly inspires. 

In the peak of her career, Gomez is a successful multihyphenate, tabloid fixture, and reported billionaire. Her public persona, calcified through her character on Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, is a fairly reserved millennial, introspective, and often struggling with mental health or even confidence issues. At the same time, Gomez has earned a bizarre reputation for her incendiary social media presence. It’s not that she has a notable track record of offensive tweets (a la her Emilia Pérez co-star Karla Sofía Gascón) or getting into nasty fights with other people online — although, her name has been caught up in some silly beefs. Nor can she be classified as a nefarious or provocative celebrity. Her online activity is mostly nothing more than messy; a relatively benign disaster.

It’s partly the result of a very strange and scattered career that’s been prone to scrutiny since she was a child star, but Gomez also has a unique penchant for stepping into chaotic situations. All in all, she remains one of the most mystifying and paradoxical celebrities of the current century. She’s one of the most popular and powerful women in the world who still feels oddly out of place as a public figure.

From child star to ambiguously talented multihyphenate

For a while, before she founded the bestselling makeup company Rare Beauty in 2019 and starred in and co-produced Only Murders in the Building in 2021, it might have been hard to attach Gomez to specific projects if you didn’t grow up watching her on Disney Channel. More than the usual stream of eye-catching creative work, her long-term massive popularity — she became the first person to reach 100 million Instagram followers in 2017 — can largely be attributed to her candor and relatability as a public figure.

It’s something Gomez has admitted to herself in a Vogue cover story in 2017: “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.” 

It’s not that Gomez hasn’t been arduously working from a young age. Following a stint on Barney & Friends around age 10, Gomez became a childhood TV staple playing the sarcastic teenager Alex Russo on Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place, which ran from 2007 to 2012. The network quickly maximized her talents, making her the frontwoman of the pop band of Selena Gomez and the Scene and casting her in the Disney Channel Original movie Princess Protection Program, in addition to a Wizards of Waverly Place film. While at Disney, Gomez launched her own production company called July Moon Productions. By the time she had wrapped up four seasons of Wizards, she had three Selena Gomez and the Scene albums under her belt — all of which debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard 200. She was not yet 20.

By the time Gomez graduated from Disney, she seemed primed for adult success, with a blockbuster acting or singing career at her fingertips. Neither immediately manifested. Her breakout adult role in the 2012 Harmony Korine film Spring Breakers was not followed by many leading acting roles. Despite declaring her aspirations to solely be known as an actor, she’s been more consistent as a pop star. Between 2013 and 2021, she’s released three No. 1 solo albums — Stars Dance, Revival, and Rare – a greatest hits album called For You, as well as a Grammy-nominated Spanish-language EP, Revelación. 

 

Selena Gomez wearing all red and performing onstage with three dancers
Selena Gomez performing at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards on April 14, 2013 in Culver City, California. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
 

Still, her hitmaking ability has not always translated into respect for her artistry or musical talent. She’s been mocked frequently online for her vocal ability and lambasted for allegedly lip-syncing during live performances. (This online ridicule has also followed her on-screen career, as clips from Emilia Pérez have been circulated on social media to show she can’t act.) 

Gomez has also experienced several mental and physical health emergencies that have presumably kept her from having the laser-focused music career as some of her pop peers. In 2015, she revealed that she received chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with lupus. In 2017, she underwent a kidney transplant. In her 2022 Apple TV+ documentary, My Mind & Me, she shared that she had sought treatment for bipolar disorderin 2018 after going into psychosis. 

Author: Kyndall Cunningham

Source: Vox

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