But living in the public eye presented challenges. “For a while, I felt like an object,” Gomez recalled to the magazine. “It felt gross for a long time.”
For instance, she’ll never forget the rumors that spread after she sought treatment for her mental health in 2014.
“I don’t even know what they really believed I was doing—drugs, alcohol, running around, partying,” the artist said. “The narrative was so nasty.”
So, she decided to speak out about her battles with anxiety and depression. And last year, Gomez shared she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
“I felt a huge weight lifted off me when I found out,” she told Elle. “I could take a deep breath and go, ‘Okay, that explains so much.'”
In 2015, Gomez shared her lupus diagnosis and over the years, she continued to talk about her health journey, including when she received her kidney transplant in 2017.