In a wide-ranging interview for Vanity Fair’s October issue, Selena Gomez opened up about everything from her relationship with Benny Blanco and starting a family, to her ongoing journey with mental health.
While discussing being godmother to her cousin Priscilla’s two children, the Only Murders in the Building star and Rare Beauty mogul revealed to Vanity Fair, “I haven’t ever said this, but I unfortunately can’t carry my own children. I have a lot of medical issues that would put my life and the baby’s in jeopardy. That was something I had to grieve for a while.”
While it’s not the way she envisioned becoming a parent and starting a family, and she’s navigated the grief surrounding the realisation she may not be able to experience pregnancy. “I’m in a much better place with that,” she said. “I find it a blessing that there are wonderful people willing to do surrogacy or adoption, which are both huge possibilities for me. It made me really thankful for the other outlets for people who are dying to be mums. I’m one of those people. I’m excited for what that journey will look like, but it’ll look a little different. At the end of the day, I don’t care. It’ll be mine. It’ll be my baby.”
Selena Gomez also shared that even before beginning to date Blanco, with whom engagement conversations have already been circulating, she had a firm plan in place to start a family by the age of 35. “And I was like, ‘Okay, if this is the vibe, then what is the most important thing to me? Family.’” She also said that she’d be open to adoption based in part on her mother’s adoption story. If her mother hadn’t been adopted, Gomez shared, “I probably wouldn’t be here. I don’t know what her life would’ve been like. She and I are very thankful for how life played out.”
The health issues she alludes to stem from the dual effects of a lupus diagnosis for which she received a kidney transplant, and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, shortly after. Both of which were subject to examination in the 2022 documentary My Mind & Me.
Now, Gomez says, life is much different. “I like to remind people that that is definitely nowhere close to where I am now. My mind was not right and chemically imbalanced, and it was really difficult. People were calling me a victim. That frustrates me, because being vulnerable is actually one of the strongest things you can do,” she shared.
“I’m ready for it all — it’s just now I’m properly medicated,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Teen Vogue.