Aurora Starchild
Selena Gomez just sat down for a roundtable discussion with The Hollywood Reporter and a group of other female icons and revealed that she felt ashamed of one of her album cover photoshoots. We don’t know exactly which photoshoot Gomez is alluding to, but the point is that the shoot wasn’t representing who she really is as a person, in her opinion.
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The conversation flows from woman to woman, namely Gomez, Amy Schumer, Molly Shannon, Quinta Brunson, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Bridget Everett. They all have stories about their journeys through show business, with common threads of finding their voices and being heard or coming to terms with who they really are.
Tracee Ellis Ross starts praising Molly Shannon over her career which leads Amy Schumer to mention that she was always appearing to be in control of her sexuality. Shannon is taken aback, grateful for the “huge complement.”
The conversation bounces back to Ross, who mentions how having a third-party witness and acknowledge that kind of boundary and verbalizing it can be empowering to someone in Hollywood. And this is where Selena Gomez comes in.
Amy Schumer turns to Gomez and says she was obviously “sexualized at such a young age, and you’ve kind of… rejected that… And have really found your own style and your own presence… like, you didn’t let anybody…”
Schumer trails for a second but continues. “I know they put you through the system and make you feel like, ‘this is how you have to do it.’ And especially reading that positive feedback, when you know, people are attracted to you or whatever. It takes a lot to go, ‘I’m going to go in this direction.’”
Selena Gomez apparently still struggled with finding her own direction, or following the directions given to her, as Schumer mentioned.
Gomez responds to Schumer, “Yeah. It’s really unfair. I actually did an album cover. And I was really ashamed after I did it. I had to work through those feelings because I realized it was attached to something deeper that was going on. And it was a choice that I wasn’t necessarily happy that I made. But I think that I’ve done my best — at least I’ve tried — to be myself. And ‘myself’ isn’t… I’m not an overly sexual person. Sometimes I like to feel sexy. But that doesn’t mean it’s for somebody else.”
The entire table agrees with Selena Gomez at this point.
It really gives a lot to chew on. No matter how empowered a person appears, especially a celebrity, there could always be someone behind-the-scenes ordering them around. And as Gomez mentions earlier during the conversation, taking control of your own narrative can take time. We don’t always have that choice when we’re super young, and then it takes a lot of honesty to separate ourselves from what is expected of us and what we want or who we are.
“Now I understand, like Amy said, that there are certain boundaries that I need to set for myself,” says Gomez. “And I respect and adore so many people. But I’ve got to do what’s best for me.”
