Selena Gomez might seem like she truly "has it all"—a hugely successful career, the most Instagram followers of anyone in the world, and a boyfriend named "The Weeknd."
But the singer battles demons like the rest of us, which she opened up about in April's Vogue cover story.
Last October, the 24-year-old checked into rehab to deal with mental health issues which at the time she attributed to "side effects from lupus," canceling the 34 remaining dates of her Revival tour. She spoke to Vogue for the first time about rehab, which she calls "one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done."
"Tours are a really lonely place for me," she tells Vogue. "My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting on stage or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn't good enough, wasn't capable. I felt I wasn't giving my fans anything, and they could see it — which, I think, was a complete distortion."
Gomez checked into a treatment facility in Tennessee where she lived with six other girls. "You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls," she says. "Real people who couldn’t give two s--ts about who I was, who were fighting for their lives."
During her 90-day stay she gave up all social media including Instagram, which she says was contributing to her low self esteem. "As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out," Gomez recalls. "It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about."
"I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram," says Gomez, who currently has 113 million followers. "Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit."
The star has since deleted the app from her phone. And she said she has about 17 people she stays in contact with, and "maybe two are famous" (I have some guesses who they may be).
Now, she tries to avoid social media altogether, which explains why she recently posted then quickly deleted a video of her and The Weeknd.
The most telling revelation from the Vogue story comes at the end, when she reveals that she's not such a fan of being famous. "Look, I love what I do, and I'm aware of how lucky I am, but — how can I say this without sounding weird? — I just really can't wait for people to forget about me," she says.
