5 Things We Learned about Selena Gomez in her Dazed Magazine Feature

We’re in a brand new decade and it looks like Selena Gomez is ready to take it!

Fresh off the release of her highly anticipated studio album, “Rare“, the 27-year-old singer is not only opening her heart and soul in her music, but she’s also posing in boundary-pushing outfits like we’ve never seen before.

Selena is the cover star of Dazed magazine’s Spring 2020 issue, and in the magazine, she’s interviewed by celebrities like Elle Fanning, Yara Shahidi, Halima Aden and Timothée Chalamet, and even some of her biggest fans.

Here are five things we learned from from her interview:

She was scared no one would like her album
Answering a question from a fan about the scariest part of releasing her album “Rare” four years after her last album, Selena revealed she was terrified that no one would like it and that her career as a singer would be over. “I genuinely thought that, I worked so, so hard on this album. It could have come out and completely flopped, and then it’s like, well, where do you go from here? I would have questioned everything because I doubt myself and that’s where I would have ended up in a spiral.”

Her favourite filmmaker, karaoke songs and dream roles
Picture this: Selena Gomez stars in Martin Scorsese’s remake of Psycho, soundtracked by Cardi B. Though this may sound like the film of your dreams, it’s actually the film of Gomez’s dreams. The singer shared some of her favourite pop culture influencers, naming Scorsese as the filmmaker she’d most like to work with, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as the horror film she’d most like to star in, and Cardi B as her go-to karaoke artist. “I just looove her so much,” gushes Gomez, “she’s so funny and brilliant. I get to turn into a character when doing karaoke. I can enjoy pretending that I’m a great rapper, which I’m not.”

Instagram actually stresses her out
Although she’s a global superstar, Gomez still gets stressed out by Instagram, just like the rest of us. The singer took a four-month break from social media in September 2018, returning last January. Answering a question about if she would get rid of Instagram entirely if she could, the singer replies: “Oh gosh! I think I’d have a lot of people not liking me for saying yes. If I could find a balanced, happy medium that would be great, but I would be lying if I said that it isn’t destroying some of my generation, their identity.” Gomez adds that social media is part of the reason she named her album ‘Rare’, “because there’s so much pressure to look the same as everyone else”.

Releasing “Rare” helped her heal
Gomez has no regrets. Responding to a question from Anna Chai, the singer says: “There are certain things which I wish hadn’t happened to me. But without them I wouldn’t have been the voice I am for people who have gone through the same thing.” Referencing her diagnosis with lupus and subsequent kidney transplant donated by her best friend, Francia Raísa, Selena says: “I was dealing with fame and with being run-down, dealing with depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues that I had. It was all a bit confusing. When “Lose You to Love Me” came out, I stood back and had this moment, like, ‘Oh… this is a huge reason why I’ve pushed myself through this. This is why.’ I was able to release a song that hopefully helps to heal some people, or just lets them know they are not alone. I was actually letting it go personally and when that happened something inside of me just left. And that’s why I am grateful for the chapters of my life. I’m not saying that it’s gonna be easy from now on, but I have a lot more strength and a lot more courage and a bigger voice to stand up for what I deserve.”

Selena wants to focus more on her philantropy
When asked what she’d like to be doing in ten years time, Gomez hoped she’d be doing more of her philanthropy, “while maintaining a healthy balance of the stuff I enjoy now”. Answering a question about the favourite memories of her work with the organisation, Gomez says: “One of them is when I took pictures on my phone with these young kids (in Chile) and showed them and they were so excited. They’d just never seen a photograph of themselves. Even the water was such poor quality that they’d never even seen their reflection.”

Photo Credit

Photography: @briannalcapozzi ⁠
Styling: @emmawyman⁠
Hair: @tamaramcnaughton⁠
Make-up: @yad1m⁠
Nails: @tombachik⁠
Set design: @nicholasdesjardins