Selena Gomez has been keeping it real with her fans for years now, opening up about everything from mental health to body image, and much more. And now, the 30-year-old Only Murders in the Building actress has gotten candid yet again, this time, taking fans right back to her Disney days. And there are definitely a few things that might take fans by surprise!
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Selena Gomez Tells ‘Vanity Fair’ She Feels ‘Triggered’ By Her Disney Past
Selena made her TV debut on Barney & Friends when she was ten years old from 2002 to 2004 and then went on to star as Alex Russo in Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place from 2007 to 2012. A lot of our favorite celebs got their start on Disney, including Demi Lovato, the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and Britney Spears to name just a few, but Selena confessed that she felt somewhat triggered by her Disney past, and feels much freer now she has put it behind her!
“I definitely feel free of it,” she said in a very candid interview with Vanity Fair for its 29th annual Hollywood Issue, which she covers alongside Ana de Armas and Florence Pugh, among others. “Sometimes I get triggered. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my past, it’s just that I’ve worked so hard to find my own way,” she continued. “I don’t want to be who I was. I want to be who I am.”
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The Rules Selena Had To Follow
Being a Disney starlet comes with a lot of responsibility due to how many young and impressionable eyes are watching you at all times. And Selena revealed some of the rules she had to follow during her Disney days, including what she could and couldn’t say!
“I wasn’t a wild child by any means, but I was on Disney, so I had to make sure not to say ‘What the [expletive]’ in front of anyone,” the Spring Breakers star explained. “It’s stuff that I was also putting on myself to be the best role model I could be. Now I think being the best role model is being honest, even with the ugly and complicated parts of yourself.”
What Has Selena Gomez Previously Said About Her Disney Past?
The Vanity Fair interview wasn’t the only time the Selena + Chef host has opened up about her Disney past. Back in 2015, the "Calm Down" singer told the New York Times that she was "growing and changing" and wanted to move away from her Disney image, especially as she had just started dating!
"I was in a relationship, and I was being managed by my parents, and I was still under Hollywood and Disney, and I was being held to this expectation of being the good girl," she recalled.
"I knew deep down that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. Being exhausted, forcing something that wasn’t right, even in my personal life. I had to have moments where I was crying and I was like, 'Why am I not in love with what I do?' I was forced to get very uncomfortable for a while in order to make the decisions I made."
And that's not all, as she once again covered the topic when appearing on the Television Critics Association press panel in August 2021. According to Us Weekly, Sel said: "I signed my life away to Disney at a very young age and I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was doing [as a kid]. I was just running around on set."
What Other Celebs Have Said Negative Things About Disney?
Selena is only the latest former Disney star to talk about some of the cons of working with the company. Here are just a few of the many former Disney Channel stars who have spoken out in the past…
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus told Marie Claire back in 2015 that Hannah Montana, which she starred in from 2006 to 2011, had a negative effect on her mental health. "I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be," the now 30-year-old "Flowers" singer confessed. "I was made to look like someone that I wasn’t, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn’t on that show, it was like, 'Who the [expletive] am I?'" she said.
Demi Lovato
Demi Lovato (who told Spout last year that she has "actually adopted the pronouns of she/her again" due to "feeling more feminine") told Billboard back in 2016 that she had "PTSD after leaving the channel," adding, "We joked around that it was Disney High, except we all were shooting shows and really overworking." More recently, she told Harper's Bazaar in 2020 that she was "grateful for the opportunities" but was "so overworked" and "wasn’t dedicating enough time" to her mental health or personal life.
Bella Thorne
In a February 2021 interview with Fox News, the now 25-year-old Shake It Up star said, "There are definitely a lot of pressures in the Disney eye to be so perfect and I think that’s where Disney in a sense goes wrong because they make their kids seem perfect. That image is very difficult. It’s also never been me." She added: "Little kids growing up don’t need to see perfect people. Kids need to see real. They need to see diversity, they need to see intriguing."
In December 2022 while speaking on the High Low with EmRata podcast, Bella told Emily Ratajkowski about the time she almost got fired because she wore a bikini! "One time I almost got fired off the Disney Channel because I was 14 and I wore a two-piece on the beach," she revealed. "This stylist that I was hanging out with put this chain on me that’s like a body chain, I don’t know. I don’t care. There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach, I almost got fired." She said people were putting Disney under pressure to fire her, and although they didn’t, they did request that she change her beach outfits in future! She said that she remembers being told that she "'needs to make sure that she goes out in board shorts and a loose T-shirt next time she’s at the beach.'"
