Selena Gomez posted two paparazzi-captured swimsuit photos on her Instagram story – and used them to make a very honest confession about her own ongoing journey to body acceptance. Gomez’s first photo was taken in October 2013, when she was 21 years old. She wore a zebra-print swimsuit and looked very toned. “Today I realized I will never look like this again…” she wrote.
She shared a second photo from January 2023, wearing a black and white swimsuit. In the photo, she was 30 years old and her figure was toned, but different from her 21-year-old figure. (Understandable, since every woman’s body changes as she ages, even in her 20s.) “I’m not perfect, but I’m proud of who I am… sometimes I forget that it’s OK to be myself,” she shared.
Gomez has modeled swimsuits for her friend’s swimwear brand over the past few years and posted her own swimsuit photos:
She also spoke openly about her journey to accepting her body, especially since being treated for lupus and bipolar depression.
Last March, she spoke openly about being body-shamed while privately battling lupus. “My weight was constantly fluctuating because I had to take certain medications,” she said. “And of course, people just accepted that… It was like they couldn’t wait to find something to bring me down. I was shamed for gaining weight because of my lupus.”
She admitted that some of her posts celebrating her body were coping mechanisms.
“I lied. I went online, posted a picture of myself and said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t accept what you’re saying,'” Gomez recalled. “The whole time I was sitting in the room, posting, crying my eyes out because nobody deserves to hear that. Even though I was posting those things and saying it doesn’t bother me, I didn’t want it to bother other people who are going through the same thing and being shamed for how they look, who they are, who they love… I just think that’s so unfair. I don’t think anyone deserves to feel less than.”
You might also like
