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Crucial Update

How Selena Gomez Deals With Body Shamers

Photo: Anthony Harvey/Stringer/Getty Images
Photo: Anthony Harvey/Stringer/Getty Images

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Ellen DeGeneres sat down with Selena Gomez to discuss her recently unveiled lupus diagnosis, her love life, and her relationship with social media body shamers. In the newest issue of Billboard, the singer reveals that she was diagnosed with lupus three years ago, and has since undergone chemotherapy. She explained on Ellen, "lupus is an autoimmune disease" that lasts forever, adding, "you just gotta take care of yourself."

Ellen then took Selena back to late-April, when she was called overweight and fat after being photographed in the ocean on vacation, wearing a bathing suit (a waterproof garment people often wear while swimming). While Gomez didn't appreciate tabloids declaring that "she's a mess" and that she's "gone off the deep end," Selena knew exactly how she'd deal with them. Gomez told Ellen:

I don't want them to win. It's so annoying when I see it all over the place and everybody thinks they can bring me down and so my immediate response was I'm gonna post a picture and I'm like 'I'm happy with me y'all' and that was gonna be the story the next day.

It most certainly was. Selena posted a photo of herself giggling on a lounge while enjoying that very same vacation bringing her confidence, rather than her bikini body, to the forefront.