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Last year, right in the middle of her Revival World Tour, Selena Gomez pulled the plug. A statement from the singer announced she was cancelling the rest of her scheduled show dates to “focus on maintaining [her] health and happiness”, and she spent the next 90 days in rehab – without her phone.
The pressures of nightly performances – not to mention being a role model to her millions of fans – had gotten to her, and it seems a social media spat with ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber and the fall-out from that finally broke the 24-year-old.
Coincidentally Gomez had begun work as an executive producer on Netflix series 13 Reasons Why around that time. It’s based on the YA novel by Jay Asher and examines what led to protagonist Hannah Baker’s suicide. In the book, Hannah left behind 13 cassette tapes for different people in her life explaining why she took her own life.
At a panel discussion about the show on Wednesday, Selena was asked if she could relate to the teenagers in 13 Reasons Why, and she didn’t mind opening up about her own recent difficulties.
“I think that my [own] high school experience was amplified,” she said, as E! News reports. “I wouldn’t say it was worse, but it made it harder… Whether it was just kids or growing up in the biggest high school in the world, which was Disney Channel, it was also adults that had the audacity to kind of tell me how I should live my life.”
“It was very confusing for me. I had no idea who I was going to be, what I’m still going to become,” she continued.
“To be frank with you, I actually was going through a really difficult time when they started production. I went away for 90 days, and I actually met a ton of kids in this place that were talking about issues that these characters are experiencing,” she said.
“Whether I like it or not, people have seen a lot of my mistakes and I had to use that as a good thing, because then they’re able to trust me. I want to be a part of this, because I think this is what they want, this is what they need.”
Despite being the most popular person on Instagram with 109 million followers, and drawing a huge amount of influence from that position, Gomez also said she’s concerned about the negative impacts of social media on the lives of teens.
“I can’t stand what [teenagers are] looking at and what they think is reality. There are 17-year-olds that look older than me and that freaks me out. We’re just so disconnected from people now. Teens just really want [a connection].”
