‘I’m not perfect, but I am proud to be who I am’: Selena Gomez claps back at body shamers

Selena Gomez took to social media to explain to her millions of followers that she is “proud” of herself and her appearance and knows that she will perhaps never look as “perfect” as she once did.

Selena has been incredibly open about her battle with lupus and bipolar, detailing how she lives with them as one of the most followed women in the world in the Apple TV+ documentary My Mind & Me. She has also been incredibly vocal about how she feels about being compared to herself before she was diagnosed with the auto-immune condition.

Finally having enough again, Selena wrote on her Instagram Story on a photo of herself from a few years ago: “Today I realised I will never look like this again…”

On a follow-up post – a much more recent picture of herself – she added: “I’m not perfect, but I am proud to be who I am….. Sometimes I forget it’s okay to be me.”

This is not the first time Selena has aimed at people coming for her looks on her own personal Instagram page. In fact, she has years of priors! In April 2022, she told haters “bye” after she labelled herself “perfect the way” she already was after a slew of TikTok trolls made jibes about her weight.

Before the 2023 Golden Globes, she posted a video addressing her larger frame while chatting to her kid sister Gracie Elliot Teefy.

In the clip posted to Instagram, she is heard saying: “I’m a little big right now because I enjoyed myself during the holidays…. right.”

In March last year, Selena once advised her dedicated army of followers to “appreciate” themselves and their looks before getting any work done.

However, she fully went into it with how her health journey – such as her kidney transplant in 2017 – had impacted her “body image” on her pal Raquelle Steven’s podcast Giving Backing Generation in 2019.

“I have lupus and deal with kidney issues and high blood pressure, so I deal with a lot of health issues, and for me, that’s when I really started noticing more of the body image stuff,” she said, explaining her meds played a big part in her weight gain.

Selena is not a stranger to ‘taking a break’ from socials, so she could do that again if it all gets too much. However, Selena’s idea of a pause literally appears to be closing the app and popping your phone on the kitchen table while you sort some life admin out. After being nabbed gossiping about Kylie Jenner at the Golden Globes, she was off for mere hours after swearing off Insta. 

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Photo credit – Selena Gomez/Instagram