The kidney transplant that was supposed to save Selena Gomez almost killed her. In a new interview with W Magazine, Francia Raísa—Gomez’s kidney donor and best friend—opened up about how they both endured tough recoveries.
“I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to drink anything. Selena did have a complication, too,” Raísa told W Magazine. “A few hours after our surgery, I woke up and had a text from her that said, ‘I’m really scared.’ My kidney was very active, and when she turned, she broke an artery.”
Raísa continued, “They had to take [Gomez] into emergency surgery and get a vein from her leg and build a new artery to keep my kidney in place. She could have died.”
The best friends kept a lid on their surgeries for a few weeks because they both “went through a depression,” Raísa shared. “We kind of just wanted to be normal and not have that attention on us. I really left it up to [Gomez].”
![This is a photo of Francia Raisa.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 203 115"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
In 2015, Gomez announced that she had been diagnosed with lupus and had undergone chemotherapy treatment. She later revealed in September 2017 that she had a kidney transplant and that Grown-ish actress Raísa had donated the kidney. According to People, Raísa’s recovery period took two months. In a Today interview with both Gomez and Raísa, Gomez credited Raísa for saving her life, “Because she did. That's it. I guess I got to the point where it was really kind of life or death,” Gomez said.