Selena Gomez ‘Wants the Body-Shaming to Stop’ Amid Her Ongoing Health Issues

The night was meant to be a celebration. On October 29, a jubilant Selena Gomez — glamorous in a black Carolina Herrera dress with a thigh-high slit — hit the red carpet at the American French Film Festival to screen her acclaimed new movie, Emilia Pérez. But when photos of the singer-actress posing with her hand in front of her stomach emerged, online critics pounced. “She’s covering her stomach,” one social media user noted in a since-deleted video, speculating that the Rare Beauty founder was “hiding” her figure because online trolls had recently been making “disgusting comments about her body.”

Selena saw the clip — and quickly made it clear she’s had enough of all the scrutiny. “This makes me sick,” the 32-year-old wrote in the comments. “I have [SIBO, or small intestine bacterial overgrowth]. It flares up,” she explained, revealing her struggle with the often painful digestive disorder that can cause bloating and is linked to other health issues. “I don’t care that I don’t look like a s[t]ick figure. I don’t have that body. End of story. No I am NOT a victim. I’m just human.” Selena “wants the body-shaming to stop,” a source exclusively tells Life & Style.

CONSTANT SCRUTINY

She’s been facing it for years. “Selena’s been open about her body image struggles and the health problems and treatments that are often behind changes in her appearance,” says the source, noting the Only Murders in the Building star has publicly shared the challenges she’s faced living with bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression as well as complications from the autoimmune disease lupus, which led to her 2017 kidney transplant.

In September, she even revealed that her multiple medical issues would make pregnancy too dangerous. But online commenters have still been cruel. “It was like [my critics] couldn’t wait to find a thing to bring me down,” Selena explained last year, noting that her medications cause her weight to fluctuate. She’s admitted that in the past that she’s “lied” about how much the scrutiny has bothered her. While publicly saying “It doesn’t matter,” she explained last year, privately, she was “crying my eyes out because nobody deserves to hear those things.”

She’s worked hard to combat those feelings. In January, alongside a string bikini pic taken years ago that she posted on her Instagram Story, Selena wrote, “Today I realized I will never look like this again …” On a second image, which showed her in a two-piece swimsuit more recently, she wrote, “I’m not perfect but I’m proud to be who I am. Sometimes I forget it’s OK to be me.” And if she can make peace with her body, says the source, “she thinks it’s about time everyone else does, too.”