Selena Gomez’s career achievements are a sight to behold. She burst onto the scene as a child actor on Barney & Friends and has never looked back since. Gomez has many acting credits, certified gold albums, and several production credits.
In recent years, Selena has hit the headlines more for her mental health campaign than her career achievements. Selena Gomez’s parents, Mandy and Rick, are a massive part of her life, and they played an instrumental role in shaping her career.
Selena blamed Mandy after her divorce from Rick
Selena was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, to Ricardo Gomez and Amanda Cornett. Selena’s Mexican father and Italian mother were high school sweethearts, and they had Selena when Mandy was 16. Rick and Mandy got married, but they split up when Selena was 5. Selena was mostly raised by her mother after the divorce, and she blamed Mandy for the split.
Selena stated on an E! Entertainment special, “I blamed my mom a lot [for the divorce] because I wanted a family so bad. I wanted to have my mom and dad together. I remember just being angry with my mom. I still feel really bad about that.”
Amanda tried as much as she could to support Selena, and at times, she worked three jobs. The accusations hurt her, but she knew that her daughter would one day understand her situation. She stated:
“[Selena] would vent and yell at me and I could do is just say, ‘I’m sorry – but you’ll understand someday.”
Cornett’s prediction came true as Selena is now appreciative of how her mom raised her. Selena told Glamour in 2012 that she tries to emulate her mom in everything that she does. The Same Old Love singer stated:
“It’s because of [my mom] that I can do things on my own. I like being professional. I like showing up on time. I like being good to people, and I know that I’m reflecting her at the end of the day.”
Rick used Selena to pick up waitresses at Hooters
Amanda raised Selena, but Rick wasn’t completely absent in his daughter’s life. He has several throwback photos of the pair, which suggest that he spent time with Selena when she was young. Selena also revealed that Rick used her to pick up waitresses at Hooters when he went there to watch basketball.
Selena told Harper’s Bazaar that it became a ‘thing’ between her and Rick. She said:
“When I was seven, my dad would go to Hooters to watch [San Antonio] Spurs games, but he started noticing that when I would come, with my little pigtails, all the waitresses would be like, ‘Hey!’ So he ended up spending time with me but with all those cute girls coming over. And that became our thing.”
Mandy got married to Brian Teefey in 2006 and Rick got married to Sarah Gomez in 2012
Mandy got married to Brian Teefey in 2006, and in late 2011, Selena announced that Mandy was expecting a child. Unfortunately, in December 2011, Mandy had a miscarriage, and she lost Scarlett. In December 2017, Mandy opened up about the miscarriage in a lengthy Instagram post. She wrote:
“Thank you to all the fans who honored our Scarlett yesterday. Dec 17th will never be the same, but we decide to celebrate her by writing her letters on red balloons and releasing them. Now the 17th is intertwined with the wrap of S2. So, she was there in spirit as always. A moms love for their children is pretty fierce.”
Thankfully for Mandy, she got pregnant again and gave birth to Gracie Elliot Teefey on 12th June 2013. Selena and Gracie are quite close, and she has several pictures of her little sister on Instagram. Rick got married to Sara Gomez in 2012, and they welcomed their daughter Victoria ‘Tori’ Gomez on 24th June 2014. Selena is also close to her dad and step-mom Sarah.
Selena also has a step-brother courtesy of Sarah’s previous relationship.
Selena and her mom have had some nasty public fall outs
Selena and her mom are quite close, but they have fallen out several times. In 2014, it was alleged that Selena fired her mom as her manager without giving her notice. Mandy then stated that she never expected to manage Selena forever and that it was for the better that she was no longer her manager.
Later on, as the #MeToo movement started to gain traction, celebrities began to distance themselves from people such as Woody Allen. However, Selena remained silent about her relations with Woody Allen. Mandy stated that she’d tried to get Selena to stop working with Allen, but she refused to listen. She replied to a fan on Instagram by saying:
“Sorry, No one can make Selena do anything she doesn’t want to. I had a long talk with her about not working with him and it didn’t click. Her team are amazing people. There is no fall person here. No one controls her. She makes all her own decisions. No matter how hard you try to advise. It falls on deaf ears.”
Mandy also opposed the late 2017 reconciliation between Selena and Justin Beiber. TMZ reported that she was so angry about the relationship that she had to go to hospital. As a result, Selena and Justin took a break to give Mandy time to accept the relationship. A source speaking to US Weekly stated:
“Her mom was her rock when she was having her health complications. Justin and Selena decided to take a break to give her family more time to heal and take in the idea of her and Justin being a couple again.”
Mandy, who has ADHD, is paying close attention to her daughter’s mental health
Mandy Teefey’s mental health struggles started when she got pregnant with Selena at 16. “I didn’t understand it because I didn’t grow up in a neighborhood where you talk about feelings,” She said. Mandy said she didn’t know therapy existed.
Mandy’s insecurities grew, forcing her to seek out therapists. However, most of the therapists she found diagnosed her without proper evaluations. One Dallas psychologist diagnosed Mandy with bipolar and prescribed anti-seizure medication. Early menopause exposed the misdiagnosis. Mandy told People:
“I couldn’t sleep, and one night I took more than I was supposed to take of my medication to go to sleep. I was wide awake, and I woke up my husband, like, ‘Something’s wrong. I got to go somewhere.'”
Mandy missed the first table read for 13 Reasons Why to undergo a proper mental evaluation. The treatment center concluded Mandy had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and ruled out bipolar.
“I started reading on ADHD at 40 trying to figure out what was best for me, and how I needed to restructure my mind,” She said. Mandy takes medication to manage the disorder.
Mandy pays close attention to Gracie’s mental health to ensure that any condition she might have inherited gets diagnosed early and properly. Mandy continued:
“She’s not in therapy or anything, but we do extra tutoring for her and make sure that she’s getting everything she needs because there’s a huge possibility she may get it when she gets older.”
“ADHD and bipolar are often misdiagnosed with young girls, so the fact that I know my genes, that can help us guide her in the right way. But I like her spirit, and I’m enjoying it.”
Selena and her mom Mandy have launched a mental health platform dubbed Wondermind
Selena Gomez, her mom Mandy, and their friend Daniella Pierson are the pioneers behind the mental health platform Wondermind.
The three realized that they were kindred spirits as Daniella interviewed them for her newsletter, The Newsette. Mandy opened up about her anxiety and ADHD; Selena talked about self-doubt and self-esteem issues; Daniella detailed her struggle with OCD. Gomez spoke to Entrepreneur about that conversation:
“It’s one of the moments I felt closest to my mom – us coming together to talk about something we each have experienced in our manner. It was wonderful. And then to be understood by Daniella was even better.”
Wondermind’s goal is ‘to create a world where caring for your mental health is democratized and destigmatized,’ the platform’s website reads. The site states that one needs more than the occasional therapy session to deal with mental health issues properly.
The platform’s goal is to fill the void that therapy can’t fill. “(You wouldn’t expect physical fitness results seeing a trainer only once in a while, would you?)” the site reads. “That’s what Wondermind is here for – to give you easy doable ways to put your mental fitness first every single day.”
There is no one else Selena would rather take on this project with than her mom. “Something I’ve always tried to do in my career is make sure I lend my voice to places where it matters,” she told Entrepreneur. “And I have to give my mom credit for that because she taught me everything.”