Selena Gomez is getting heat for excluding Francia Raísa — the actor and friend who donated a kidney to Gomez in 2017 — from her documentary “My Mind & Me” and saying that Taylor Swift is her only friend in the industry.
The “Only Murders in the Building” star, 30, spoke up against the backlash, which spilled onto social media this weekend after her recent Rolling Stone interview and the exclusion of Raísa from the Alek Keshishian-directed doc. The stark AppleTV+ film chronicles the last six years of Gomez’s life — including her physical and mental health struggles with lupus, anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder.
“How I Met Your Father” and “grown-ish” star Raísa, 34, famously donated a kidney to Gomez as the latter’s battle with lupus intensified. The actors, who have been been friends for more than a decade and referred to each other as sisters, shared several details of the “ultimate gift” they gave one another on social media and in interviews at the time. (Although, some of those social posts have since been removed.)
But fans perceived a snub from Gomez when she told Rolling Stone that Taylor Swift is her “only friend in the industry” — a quote that meant to illuminate the isolation Gomez felt before her 2018 psychotic break and the difficulties she had sharing her fears with people whose lives hadn’t been derailed by fame.
“I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities. My only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift], so I remember feeling like I didn’t belong. I felt the presence of everyone around me living full lives. I had this position, and I was really happy, but … was I? Do these materialistic things make me happy?” she told the magazine. “I just didn’t like who I was, because I didn’t know who I was.”
Swift has given the documentary her stamp of approval. However, according to gossip site the Daily Mail, Raísa unfollowed Gomez a day after the doc premiered on Friday was reportedly prompted by the star’s comment about Swift, describing it as “interesting” in the comments section of an E! News Instagram post. The comment has since been deleted, Us Weekly and E! News reported.
Representatives for Raísa did not immediately respond Monday to The Times’ request for comment.
On Sunday, Gomez left a comment underneath a TikTok that dissected the drama, writing, “Sorry I didn’t mention every person I know.”
Although she isn’t in “My Mind & Me,” Raísa and several of Gomez’s celebrity friends are mentioned in the Rolling Stone story, specifically in the context of Gomez’s wedding-style 30th birthday party in Malibu over the summer.
“I thought I would be married by now, so I threw myself a wedding,” she told the mag. (Raísa and Gomez reportedly had a falling out years ago but reconciled in 2021, the Daily Mail said.)
“She invited people who had been important parts of her twenties, whether she was still close to them or not,” wrote contributor Alex Morris. “She wanted to celebrate that time, and also celebrate that it was behind her. … It was elegant, she says, classy. Miley Cyrus was there (‘f— love her’), and Gomez’s little sister, Gracie, and her kidney donor, Francia Raísa, and Camila Cabello and Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo and a Barney cake. ‘We had lovely drinks, and it was beautiful, and then my friend Cara [Delevingne] comes in and brings strippers,’ she says, laughing. ‘So I would like to say it was a mixture of sophisticated and hysterical.’”
The article also mentions the kidney transplant a handful of times, notably that it happened, that she named her new organ Fred after “Portlandia” star Fred Armisen and doesn’t expect the donated kidney to last forever.
However, “My Mind & Me,” which jumps around the six-year timeline repeatedly, makes little mention of the life-saving kidney transplant.
Representatives for Gomez and Keshishian did not immediately respond Monday to The Times’ requests for comment.