MUMBAI: Pop star Selena Gomez has admitted that there was a time in her life when fame "got out of control" and gossip was "killing" her.
Gomez opened up about dealing with media scrutiny from the time she was a teen during a conversation with Amy Schumer for Interview magazine, reports hollywoodreporter.com.
"My intention was never to become a tabloid," the 27-year-old said while talking about living life under constant media scrutiny, adding: "So when things kind of happened that way, it got out of control. And then I was like, 'Wait, none of this is true'."
Gomez got stardom in 2007 at age 15 through "The Wizards of Waverly Place". She said that "the way the media has sometimes tried to explain things has made it sound really bad".
"When in reality, there's nothing wrong with the fact that I needed to go away or that I fell in love," she said, referring to her stints at mental health facilities and her relationships with former boyfriends like Justin Bieber and The Weeknd.
"I had to start opening up because people were taking away my narrative, and it was killing me," she said, adding: "I'm so young, and I'm going to keep changing, and no one has the right to tell me how my life's going."
Gomez confessed that she makes a conscious effort to raise awareness for causes that are meaningful to her. As a survivor of lupus and her recent bipolar diagnosis, Gomez said she wants to help those who have suffered similar experiences.
"I've gone through a lot of medical issues, and I know that I can reach people who are going through similarly scary things -- an organ transplant, or being on dialysis, or going away for treatment," said Gomez, who underwent a kidney transplant in 2017 due to lupus complications.
"A huge part of why I have a platform is to help people. That's why I think I'm OK with the magnitude. I mean, I'm not really OK with it -- but I'm going to say that I am because it's worth it. I know that I'm making someone somewhere feel good, or feel understood or heard, and that's worth it for me," she added.
Gomez also spoke about returning to music, with her third album, "Rare".
"I wrote it at the beginning of last year and had just gotten out of treatment," she said, adding: "It was a moment when I came back, and I was like, 'I'm ready to go into the studio with people I trust and start working on songs.' There was an air around it where people were very happy because it was like I was going to finally be me. But I didn't necessarily see it that way at the time. When I wrote the song, I was basically saying that I needed to hit rock bottom to understand that there was this huge veil over my face."
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