The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2020 - Issue 27

bite music celeb was important to share the music, as I know many can relate to the fact that the road to self-discovery generally comes through the scars in one’s life.” In 2015, Bieber indirectly admitted he had cheated on Gomez when he told i-D magazine, “We were working out how to be in a relationship, how to be ourselves, who we were, in the middle of having people judge our relationship through the media. I think that really messed my head up too. Because then, it’s like trust and all this other stuff that starts messing with your mind. You’re on the road. And there are beautiful women on the road. And you’re just getting yourself into trouble…” Gomez relieved she’s finally out of a toxic relationship after so many years, opened up about the end of the relationship in an interview with NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “I’ve found the strength in it. It’s dangerous to stay in a victim mentality. And I’m not being disrespectful; I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse.” When Garcia-Navarro asked her if she meant ‘emotional abuse’ Gomez replied, “Yes. I had to find a way to understand it as an adult.” She went on to say, “And I had to understand the choices I was making. As much as I definitely don’t want to spend the rest of my life talking about this, I am really proud that I can say I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt and I’ve found a way to just walk through it with as much grace as possible.” Her song helped her cope: “I’m very proud of it. It has a different meaning to me now from when I wrote it. I felt I didn’t get a respectful closure, and I had accepted that, but I know I need- ed some way to just say a few things that I wish I had said.” Whilst coping with the stresses of her relationship with Bie- ber, Gomez took a career break in 2016 after suffering panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. She underwent a kidney transplant due to lupus in 2017 and later admitted the surgery caused a bout of depression. Recently she opened up about her mental health in a discussion with Miley Cyrus on her live stream Bright Minded in April following a diagnosis of bipolar disorder after going to a leading psychiatric facility, McLean Hospital, in Massachusetts. After finding out the diagnosis, she said she was partly terri- fied and partly relieved because the veil had been lifted and she finally had the knowledge of why she had suffered from various depression and anxieties for so many years. “When I was younger, I was scared of thunderstorms and my mom bought me all these books on thunderstorms and she was like, ‘The more you educate yourself on this, the more that you’re not going to be afraid.’ It completely worked. That’s something that helps me big time.” With her latest single titled ‘Boyfriend’, Gomez, now 27, may be indicating she wishes to have a boyfriend but she is presently happy being single and concentrating on herself. However, she’s still open to accepting love again. “I’ve been super, super single for two years and I want to know what the love will look like next for me,” she said. “I want it to be real, and I don’t want it to be codependent or messy or [have] a lack of communication. I think when you get older, you find people that are actually right for you.” A woman who has overcome the perils of her first love, and experienced other loves in between, albeit short-lived, we hope Selena Gomez will find the love of her life in the not too distant future. www.selenagomez.com