ISAY NO TO THE DRAMA

Shes the most followed woman on Instagram but actress Selena Gomez says shes too old for all the silly’ comments on social media

- KESHIA AFRICA

THERE are so many ways to describe her you practically need a book to fit it all in. 

Actor, producer, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, mental-health advocate, kidney transplant survivor and social-media queen. 

Selena Gomez has been there, done that and got so many T-shirts it’s hard to believe she’s barely out of her 20s. 

She’s also had plenty of curveballs lobbed her way during her years in the spotlight, including being scorned by friends, battling ongoing health issues and sinking to the depths of depression. 

Yet her star refuses to be dimmed. In fact, right now it’s shining brighter than ever. 

The 30-year-old features on the cover of Vanity Fair’s iconic Hollywood issue, one of the “in crowd” identified by the glossy magazine as the new power generation of Tinseltown. 

They’re celebrating “captivating young stars who are riveting on-screen, driven and ever-evolving”, the publication says. 

Selena was also chosen because of her social-media in- fluence. Earlier this year she dethroned Kylie Jenner as the most-followed woman on Instagram with a staggering 387 million followers – despite having turned her account over to an assistant in 2019 because she found the platform too toxic. 

“There’d be thousands of really nice comments, but my mind goes straight to the mean one,” she says.

Outsourcing social-media activity means she can have influence without becoming steeped in negativity, she says. 

And negativity has a way of haunting Selena. Getting to where she is today has required a journey to hell and back – and making peace with the fact she can never please all the people all the time.