When: Friday, Nov. 4
Where: Apple TV+
I woke up early this morning anxious before I hit play on Apple TV+’s Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me. As someone who has been following, and writing about, Gomez’s career for quite some time, I knew most of the details about the ongoings in her life. Gomez has dealt with everything from a childhood dealing with financial struggles, growing up in the spotlight, a painful breakup with Justin Bieber, a Lupus and bipolar diagnosis, and a history of physical and mental health issues—and she went through all of that while the world watched along.
The documentary gives a more intimate look—so intimate that at times you feel as if you’re invading her personal space—and it shows what went down behind the scenes and beyond the headlines. During the Revival Tour in 2016, Gomez suffered a mental breakdown that led her to check into a facility for treatment and cancel the tour. That led to a bipolar diagnosis and the process of her beginning to understand certain episodes in her life that were triggered by the disorder is so painful to watch but absolutely necessary.
During a press tour for her Rare album, she seems completely irritated by the process of speaking to journalists, answering questions (like “What’s your favorite color?”), and filming the kind of content that left her feeling empty and like “a product.” Her frustrations with reporters seeming uninterested in her as a person or asking her superficial questions that she called a “waste of time” makes me want to up my game when speaking to talent. The whole process of a press tour can feel empty, on both sides, but she is the one that has to do it repeatedly—all while internally dealing with her disorder.
As irritable as she is around the press, Gomez instantly becomes pleasant, warm, and charismatic whenever she is around her fans. She consoles and hugs anyone who she sees crying over her, and no matter what she’s dealing with she takes the time to listen to their stories. It’s difficult to tell which version of the Gomez we see in the documentary she feels is the real her—the one that is annoyed at the part of her job that requires her to interact with people or the one who has to pretend to be OK in front of a crowd. But maybe it’s both.
Aside from having a team and her best friends around her, she goes through a lot and she is seemingly on her own through much of it. In the doc, she claims to have been a loner most of her life, with only her cousin on her dad’s side being her one true friend growing up. She also mentions having a strained relationship with her mother (they launched the mental health platform Wondermind together earlier this year) due to her diagnosis. She isn’t very close to her dad either, and in one of the most heartbreaking moments, she’s getting treatment for her Lupus and her grandmother refuses to go with her. The audience then gets to see one of the most famous women in the world at her most vulnerable—hooked up to an IV, curled up on a chair, and alone.
At the end of My Mind and Me, I was left with a sense of melancholy brewing in my chest. I want to know more about where she is mentally now following her diagnosis. She has since continued making strides in providing mental health care for all through her Rare Impact Fund, but as much as she finds purpose in helping others, Gomez is deserving of someone who fights for her and protects her the way she does for others. She mentioned that she had thoughts of not existing anymore quite frequently throughout the documentary, so all I can say is that I am glad she’s still here. —Karla Rodriguez.