Selena Gomez Gets Candid About Her Mental Health During Quarantine
Selena Gomez opened up about her mental health struggles during quarantine on an Instagram Live with Dr. Vivek Murthy.
On October 10 for World Mental Health Day famous singer and actress, Selena Gomez, did an interview with Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general under the Obama administration, to talk about the growing epidemic of loneliness and ways to heal through human connection.
Gomez hosted her own virtual event for World Mental Health Day in which she featured a talk from Dr. Murthy, along with a panel from her makeup brand Rare Beauty discussing their struggles with mental health. Her event also showcased a segment called “My Epiphany” featuring the Sad Girls Club and social media manager, Amani Richardson.
Happy World Mental Health Day, friends! 🎉 Come hang with us all day long for our first ever Mental Health Social Summit. Today we continue to acknowledge the importance of taking care of our mental health. Head to our IG & follow along! #WorldMentalHealthDay pic.twitter.com/yFjNSsHlVn
— Rare Beauty (@rarebeauty) October 10, 2020
In the segment with Dr. Murthy, she described herself as having gone through “a bit of a depression” in the early stages of quarantine. She states, “in the beginning, I couldn’t deal with it [quarantine] that well. I kind of went into a bit of a depression. And then I started going into a place where I was really writing and being active. And then I guess it just forced me to have that time. And again, I’ve been able to spend time with those quality people a lot more than I ever have. And spending a lot more time with my family, and I almost feel like I’ve become normalized in this situation that’s not normal.”
Gomez then described ways she’s combatting getting out of her mental slump: “Slowly, toward the end, I’ve found the things that I’m doing are coming out and that was something extremely exciting for me. I worked on personal things like a beauty line that has—our goal is to reach $100 million in 10 years for mental health. And we have all of these different things so that has kept me busy. And recently, I’ve been able to go into the studio so I would say right now, I’m fully coming out again. I just think I had handled it the way I needed to handle it, and I got through that with the right people and doing the right things and doing the right steps to not make me go crazy.”
She then expressed her opinion on the negative effects of loneliness as a contributing factor to loneliness, making her feel as if she needed constant validation. She stated, “I’m very vocal about technology. I have not personally in two years had any sort of social media on my phone. Though I use the platform, I make sure I approve and write things that I want to write but I don’t look at it and it’s not on my phone so I believe heavily there is something about social media and its technology getting blamed for increases in loneliness and disconnection. I get pretty fired up on the subject.”
If you’re interested, you can watch the full segment with Selena Gomez and Dr.Murthy above. Also, be sure to check out her beauty line raising money for mental health foundations, Rare Beauty.
