Selena Gomez needn’t do much to keep her 157 million Instagram followers happy. Once the platform’s most-followed celebrity, she remains squarely in fourth place despite extended social media breaks and an admission that she long ago deleted the app from her phone. Gone are the days where she would readily engage with fans. “I think it’s just become really unhealthy,” she shared on LIVE With Kelly and Ryan this June. “I think, personally, for young people, including myself, to spend all of their time fixating on all these comments and letting this stuff in. It was affecting me. It would make me depressed. It would make me feel not good about myself and look at my bodydifferently and all kinds of stuff. But she hasn’t entirely abandoned ship. Should the mood strike, she relies on a bit of help from a friend. “I have it on someone else’s phone,” she explained. “And when I feel like I want to share something with my fans or just mess around with it, I do it then.” Such was the case this past Monday when she shared a fresh-faced and snuggled up selfie that garnered some seven-and-a-half million double-taps for the caption, “Me, all the time.” The post veered into vague territory. Was it the lack of makeup that defined her? Her sleepiness? A propensity to be wrapped in blankets? But the essence of who Selena Gomez is these days can best be boiled down to a single word: happy. One year after seeking treatment to help with her ongoing anxiety and depression the 27-year-old multi- hyphenate feels confident that she’s living her best life. That started with the type of definitive diagnosis that had long eluded her. Calling the moments before she sought help “one of the scariest moments of my life,” she told the crowd gathered last month to watch her receive the 2019 McLean Award about the clarity that followed. “The doctors were able to give me a clear diagnosis,” she shared while accepting the honor, bestowed upon those that help further the public’s understanding of mental illness. “The moment I received that information, I actually felt equal parts of terrified and relieved.
