Back in 2014, Selena Gomez checked into rehab for undisclosed reasons.
At the time, numerous media outlets assumed that Gomez was struggling with substance abuse or depression linked to her most recent breakup with Justin Bieber.
We later learned that Gomez was suffering from Lupus which forced her to undergo chemotherapy, cancel tour dates, and generally step away from the spotlight for several months.
Gomez doesn’t often discuss her health issues in public, but in her recent GQ profile – yes, the one that features a photo of Selena topless – she revealed far more than just her figure:
“First off, this is something that everyone always wants to fixate on. I got diagnosed with lupus,” Selena told the men’s mag.
“My mom had a very public miscarriage. So I had to cancel my tour. I needed time to just be okay, and I was going through leukemia.” [She presumably meant to say “chemotherapy.”]
“I went to two different locations for those treatments. It’s really frustrating, because I am 100 percent allowed to have that, but I think people just want to have some sort of—”
According to the interviewer, Selena stopped mid-sentence, seemingly overcome with emotion.
She went on to reveal that one of the first people she told about her illness was a sick young boy she met while visiting a children’s hospital:
“And there was this kid that wouldn’t look me in the eye at all…I wanted to get his attention, even though maybe it was too much. So I just said, ‘Ask me anything you want,"” she recalled.
“And he was the first person that I told, besides my best friend and family, because he asked me, ‘Have you ever dealt with anything like this?’
And I said, ‘I have lupus. I was in the ICU for two and a half weeks. I was in this exact same room.’ And it was the first time that he looked at me.”
Fortunately Gomez says she’s optimistic about her future health:
“I just have to be patient. It’s slowly dissolving the older I get. And I just have to be patient and make great things with quality, from producing to singing to acting.
“And one by one, I will be able to change the dialogue and people won’t care about everything that’s happened to me.”
