Selena Gomez took a much needed break in 2016 and now she is opening up about the process. "You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls," the 24-year-old told Vogue about her 90-day treatment experience. "Real people who couldn’t [care less] about who I was, who were fighting for their lives." She continued: "It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done." The Come and Get It singer cancelled over 30 dates of world-wide Revival tour, and sought help for issues with her self esteem. "Tours are a really lonely place for me. My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage," Selena, who sought help in 2014 for two weeks due to complications with Lupus said. “Basically I felt I wasn't good enough, wasn't capable. I felt I wasn't giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion. I was so used to performing for kids."
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Selena appears on the April cover of Vogue
The former Disney Channel star noted that her fans were getting older, and could no longer be fooled during her performances. "At concerts I used to make the entire crowd raise up their pinkies and make a pinky promise never to allow anybody to make them feel that they weren't good enough," she explained. "Suddenly I have kids smoking and drinking at my shows, people in their 20s, 30s, and I'm looking into their eyes, and I don't know what to say. I couldn't say, 'Everybody, let's pinky-promise that you're beautiful!' It doesn't work that way, and I know it because I'm dealing with the same [things] they're dealing with. What I wanted to say is that life is so stressful, and I get the desire to just escape it. But I wasn't figuring my own stuff out, so I felt I had no wisdom to share. And so maybe I thought everybody out there was thinking, 'This is a waste of time.'”
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Selena shared that she is not in control of her Instagram account
Another aspect that became too time consuming for Selena was social media. The most followed person on Instagram shared that she had disconnected from the app and is no longer in control of her account. "As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out," she shared. "It had become so consuming to me. It's what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn't want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn't want to care about. I always end up feeling [bad] when I look at Instagram. Which is why I'm kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit."
After disconnecting from social media and reconnecting with herself, Selena, who has been romantically linked with The Weeknd, found her authentic self. "People so badly wanted me to be authentic, and when that happened, finally, it was a huge release," she said. "I'm not different from what I put out there. I've been very vulnerable with my fans, and sometimes I say things I shouldn't. But I have to be honest with them. I feel that's a huge part of why I'm where I am."
