How Selena Gomez battled Bieber heartbreak to become an Emmy-nominated billionaire in love
It’s all happening for Selena Gomez.
Earlier this month, 32-year-old Gomez landed on Bloomberg’s billionaire index with an estimated worth of $1.3 billion, thanks to her growing empire, which includes her phenomenally popular Rare Beauty line and the mental health startup Wondermind.
Engagement rumors are swirling around her and her boyfriend, music producer Benny Blanco. And, she has her biggest role to date — and her first Spanish-speaking one — as a Mexican drug lord’s wife in the musical drama “Emilia Perez” out this November.
Oh, and Sunday night, she’s vying for an Emmy for Best Actress Comedy Series for her work in “Only Murders in the Building.”
“I freaked out,” Gomez told Vanity Fair of scoring her first Emmy nomination for acting, in a category that includes comedy queens Kristen Wiig and Jean Smart.
She also earned her third nomination for being a producer on “Only Murders” — a record for a Latina — which is up for Best Comedy Series.
On the show, now in its fourth season, she plays Mabel Mora, a sardonic true crime podcaster who teams up with her neighbors and fellow amateur detectives Charles (Steve Martin, 79), and Oliver (Martin Short, 74) to solve crimes.
Over the seasons, Mabel had bonded with Charles and Oliver despite their age differences. Offscreen, Gomez has also formed unlikely friendships with Martin and Short.
“There’s a degree of reality to it,” celebrity publicist Mitchell Jackson, founder of BCC Communications, told The Post. “There’s some sort of camaraderie and they really do get along. I don’t think Steve Martin would be someone you push to do something he didn’t want to.”
Another insider who has worked with Gomez and her team previously told The Post: “They [Martin, Short and Gomez] are real friends. She’s not a fake person that, at the end of the day, is what it is.”
The Post has reached out to Gomez’s team for comment.
She’s also found real love with Blanco, one of Hollywood’s most in demand music producers, who has worked with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Kate Perry and Gomez’s ex Justin Bieber.
The two met in 2015 when Gomez and Blanco, 36, collaborated on her hit, “Same Old Love” and became friends.
The pair made it red carpet-official on Jan. 15, 2024, at the 2023 Emmy Awards (the ceremony was delayed due to strikes) in Los Angeles where Gomez introduced Blanco to Martin and Short.
“I’ve never been loved this way,” Gomez told Vanity Fair in its October issue. “He’s just been a light. A complete light in my life.”
Gotham Burger Social Club owner Mike Puma hosted an event for Blanco’s cookbook, “Open Wide,” at the restaurant’s Lower East Side location and witnessed their love firsthand.
“They were very comfortable together. They were warm. Very sweet couple — you could see her attraction to him. She couldn’t have been any sweeter,” Puma told The Post. “He opened up the car door for her when they left.”
Both seem totally smitten. For Gomez’s birthday in July, Blanco posted a photo of him cuddling the “Calm Down” singer while wearing a white teddy bear costume.
“I used to play a teddy bear in ur music video and now I get to be urs in real life. I love u!” he wrote in the caption.
It hasn’t been an easy path to this happy point.
Gomez’s mother, former actress Mandy Teefey, had her when she was just 16. The future star’s early years were spent in poverty in Grand Prairie, Texas, a small suburb near Dallas.
Showbiz was a ticket out.
In 2002 at age 10, Gomez made her Hollywood debut in the 90s kids show “Barney & Friends.” By 2007, she was starring as teen witch Alex Russo on the Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.” A year later, she started making music.
She met fellow pop star Justin Bieber in 2009 after being introduced by their managers. Bieber revealed in an interview that she was his celebrity crush.
They started dating in 2010 and quickly became the “it” couple of the moment — with the paparazzi circus to match.
In 2013, Gomez released her first solo studio album “Stars Dance.” It debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200, but the rising star only had so much to celebrate.
That same year, she was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack its own tissues.
Gomez was also struggling with her mental health amidst the stresses of fame and her relationship with Bieber.
In 2016, she cancelled her Revival World Tour and and checked in to a treatment facility in Tennessee for anxiety and depression.
“The pressure is just overwhelming,” she said at the time, in a moment that was later broadcast in her 2022 documentary “My Mind & Me.”
“I didn’t want to go to a mental health hospital. I didn’t want to. But I didn’t want to be trapped in myself, in my mind anymore. I thought my life was over. I was like, ‘This is how I’m going to be forever,’ ” she revealed in the documentary.
In 2017, Gomez had to get a kidney transplant as her lupus worsened. The following year, she and Bieber broke up for good after years of on-and-off drama.
Not long after, she started hearing voices, became unrecognizable to close friends and had an episode of full-blown psychosis.
“It started to get really dark,” she told Rolling Stone.
Gomez was hospitalized and eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Initially, she was so medicated that she felt totally lost.
But, after getting released, she got a new doctor who helped streamline her treatment.
She also found healing in giving back. She’s bravely shared her mental journey, worked on projects she believes in — executive producing Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” and “Living Undocumented,” among others — and raised money for worthy causes.
“I have my days like everyone else, but I’m no victim. I just survived a lot,” she told Vanity Fair. “There isn’t part of me that wants anyone to feel sorry for me.”
A portion of product sales from Gomez’s Rare Beauty are donated to her philanthropic arm Rare Impact Fund, dedicated to helping young people around the world get mental health services and education.
Through it all, industry insiders say Gomez has always been professional. They say her Disney days gave her a work ethic that today’s YouTube stars lack.
“You don’t reach billionaire status — especially after overcoming health issues — unless you’re smart and assemble smart people around you,” Jackson said. “From the TV front to the beauty products, it’s clear she knows what she’s doing. It goes back to that Disney method of what a star is like. These kids were trained to be stars, which doesn’t happen anymore.”
At a time when Sephora’s shelves are clogged with celebrity beauty lines, insiders say Rare Beauty stands out for its quality.
“She’s not just putting her name on things,” a source who has worked with Gomez said. “When she does something, she’s doing it with intention and purpose.”
Looking ahead, Gomez revealed to Vanity Fair that she wants to be a mother, though her health issues prevent her from being able to safely carry her own child.
Initially, she struggled with this fact, but she’s open to being a mom any way she can.
“There are wonderful people willing to do surrogacy or adoption, which are both huge possibilities for me,” she told the magazine. “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.”
