On the heels of releasing one of her most personal projects to date, Rare, Selena Gomez is continuing to open up about extremely intimate parts of her life, including painful parts of past relationships.
In a revealing new interview with NPR, Gomez spoke about suffering emotional abuse during the period of time when she was dating Justin Bieber. The exchange began with a discussion of her song “Lose You to Love Me,” which fans had assumed was about Bieber since its release; Gomez finally confirmed the inspiration behind it.
“I'm very proud of it,” she said of the song. “It has a different meaning to me now from when I wrote it. I felt I didn’t get a respectful closure, and I had accepted that, but I know I needed some way to just say a few things that I wish I had said. It’s not a hateful song; it’s a song that is saying—I had something beautiful and I would never deny that it wasn’t that,” she said. “It was very difficult and I’m happy it’s over. And I felt like this was a great way to just say, you know, it’s done, and I understand that, and I respect that, and now here I am stepping into a whole other chapter.”
The interviewer, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, interjected, saying, “Saying goodbye to Justin Bieber, who I’m assuming you’re speaking about,” to which Gomez responded, “You had to get the name in, I get it.”
“Do you look back on that time, and when you think about the parts of your life that were painful, that you’ve kind of moved on from, is that one of the harder parts?” Garcia-Navarro asked. Gomez replied, “No, because I’ve found the strength in it. It’s dangerous to stay in a victim mentality. And I’m not being disrespectful, I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse—,” and Garcia-Navarro added, “You mean emotional abuse?”
“Yes,” the singer responded. “And I think that it’s something that—I had to find a way to understand it as an adult. And I had to understand the choices I was making. As much as I definitely don’t want to spend the rest of my life talking about this, I am really proud that I can say I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt and I’ve found a way to just walk through it with as much grace as possible.”
While Bieber has not responded to Gomez’s statements (NPR notes that they reached out to Bieber for comment), he did admit in a lengthy Instagram post in September that he “abused” all his relationships. “I became resentful, disrespectful to women and angry,” he penned at the time, linking his destructive behavior to alcohol and drug abuse and the effects of massive fame at a young age.
Gomez, who has been open about her own mental health struggles, said she’s in a good place right now. “I feel great, yeah. I’m on the proper medication that I need to be on, even as far as my mental health,” she said. “I fully believe in just making sure you check in with your doctors or therapist. [Taking care of mental health—] that’s forever. That’s something I will have to continue to work on.”
