She’s the teen queen turned chart-topping songstress. But away from the glitzy world of showbiz, Selena Gomez was a young lady battling an autoimmune disease and who received a kidney from her friend to survive
From child star to Disney teen to pop princess, Selena Gomez, 26, has risen to be one of the most recognizable faces in the entertainment industry. If that’s not enough, she is a childhood friend of Demi Lovato, best friends with mega-star Taylor Swift and was once the girlfriend of Justin Bieber (many moons ago). Name dropping aside, beneath the glitz and glamour portrayed on stage, Gomez remains down to earth, using her fame as a platform to speak about serious issues such as mental health and the obsession with perfection on social media. She uses her voice not only in song, but to speak about issues she struggles with, particularly her life-threatening autoimmune disorder and her journey through a kidney transplantation process.
UPCOMING CHILD STAR
Selena Marie Gomez was born in Texas on July 22, 1992 to parents Ricardo Joel Gomez and Amanda Dawn Cornett. When she was only 10 years of age, she appeared in Barney & Friends (between 2002 to 2004), singing, dancing and performing duets with the friendly purple dinosaur. That was also where she met and befriended fellow starlet, Demi Lovato.
A mere few years later, Gomez broke into the Disney scene, appearing regularly in the hugely successful and popular series Hannah Montana. It wasn’t until 2007 that she earned a starring Disney role, playing one of the lead characters in the series Wizards of Waverly Place. In the show, she was the beautiful and sassy teenage wizard Alex Russo, a character she played for four seasons (she even sang the theme song for the show).
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