Selena Gomez
Selena Marie Gomez is an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Gomez began her career as a child actress, appearing on the children's television series Barney & Friends, and emerged as a teen idol for her leading role as Alex Russo on the Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place. She signed with Hollywood Records in 2008 and formed the band Selena Gomez & the Scene, which released three albums: Kiss & Tell, A Year Without Rain, and When the Sun Goes Down.
Gomez has released three solo studio albums, starting with the EDM-infused debut, Stars Dance, which featured the top-ten single "Come & Get It". She followed with Revival, which included "Good for You", "Same Old Love", and "Hands to Myself". Her third album, Rare, produced her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "Lose You to Love Me". She also released the Spanish EP Revelación and her fourth album I Said I Love You First, with her husband Benny Blanco. Gomez has collaborated on various singles, such as "We Don't Talk Anymore", "It Ain't Me", "Wolves", "Taki Taki", and "Calm Down", the last of which is widely regarded as the most successful Afrobeats song of all time.
She has also starred in various films, including Another Cinderella Story, Monte Carlo, Spring Breakers, The Fundamentals of Caring, The Dead Don't Die, Emilia Pérez, and the Hotel Transylvania film franchise. Gomez has produced series such as 13 Reasons Why, Living Undocumented and Selena + Chef, and has played a lead role in Only Murders in the Building since 2021. Her accolades include an Actor Award, an American Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, two MTV Video Music Awards and 16 Guinness World Records.
Gomez has worked with charitable organizations. She advocates for mental health, and gender, racial, and LGBT equality, and has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2009. She founded the cosmetic company Rare Beauty in 2020, valued at $2 billion in 2024, and non-profit Rare Impact Fund. She has appeared in listicles such as the Time 100 and Forbes 30 Under 30, was named Billboards Woman of the Year, and Latin Women of the Year, and was made a member of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Government of France. She is the most-followed woman on Instagram, and among the wealthiest musicians.
Early life
Selena Marie Gomez was born on July 22, 1992, in Grand Prairie, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. Her parents are Ricardo Joel Gomez and Texas-born former stage actress Amanda Dawn "Mandy" Teefey. She was named after Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla. Her father is of Mexican descent, while her mother, who was adopted, has Italian ancestry. Gomez's paternal grandparents emigrated to Texas from Monterrey, Mexico in the 1970s. She has called herself "a proud third-generation American-Mexican" and once said "My family does have quinceañeras, and we go to the communion church. We do everything that's Catholic, but we don't really have anything traditional except go to the park and have barbecues on Sundays after church." Gomez's Spanish fluency waned after age seven, when she began working on television.Her parents divorced when she was five years old, and she remained with her mother. Gomez's mother and her second husband, Brian Teefey, had a daughter, Gracie Elliot Teefey, born in 2013. Through her father and his second wife, Sara, she has a half-sister, Victoria "Tori" Gomez, and a step-brother named Marcus. For most of her childhood, she was homeschooled, save for a brief period when she attended a traditional school as a young girl. She earned her high-school diploma through homeschooling in May 2010.
Gomez was born when her mother was 16 years old. The family had financial troubles throughout Gomez's childhood, with her mother struggling to provide for the pair. At one point, Gomez recalls that they had to search for quarters to buy gas for their car. Her mother later recalled that the two would frequently walk to their local dollar store to buy spaghetti for dinner.
Gomez has said, "I was frustrated that my parents weren't together, and never saw the light at the end of the tunnel where my mom was working hard to provide a better life for me. I'm terrified of what I would have become if I'd stayed ." She later added that her mother "was really strong around me. Having me at 16 had to have been a big responsibility. She gave up everything for me, had three jobs, supported me, sacrificed her life for me." Gomez had a close relationship with her grandparents as a child and appeared in various pageants. Her grandparents often took care of her while her parents finished their schooling, and she has said they "raised her" until she found success in show business.
Career
2002–2006: Career beginnings
Gomez first gained an interest in pursuing a career in entertainment watching her mother prepare for stage productions. In 2002, she began her acting career on the children's television series Barney & Friends. She appeared in thirteen episodes between 2002 and 2004, as well as in two direct-to-video films associated with the series. Reflecting on the experience, she said, "I was very shy when I was little I didn't know what 'camera right' was. I didn't know what blocking was. I learned everything from Barney." She added that after two seasons the producers felt she was "getting a little too old" for the series. During this period, Gomez had small roles in the family film Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and the made-for-television film Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire. She also guest-starred in a 2006 episode of the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.2007–2012: Breakthrough with Disney and Selena Gomez & the Scene
Gomez was given a recurring role on the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana in 2007 as the pop star Mikayla. Around the same period, she filmed pilot episodes for two prospective Disney Channel series: a Lizzie McGuire spin-off titled What's Stevie Thinking?, and a Suite Life spin-off titled Arwin! She subsequently auditioned for Wizards of Waverly Place and was cast as Alex Russo, a teenage wizard. The series became a major success for the network and helped establish Gomez as a "teen idol". It received positive reviews, with critics highlighting her comic timing and sarcastic delivery.In 2008, while working on the second season of Wizards of Waverly Place, Gomez voiced Helga in the animated film Horton Hears a Who! She also starred as Mary Santiago in the direct-to-video teen musical comedy film Another Cinderella Story, the second installment of the A Cinderella Story series. Her performance earned her a Young Artist Award. She contributed three songs to the film's soundtrack, including her debut single, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know", which became her first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. She performed "Cruella de Vil" for Disney's 101 Dalmatians Platinum Edition DVD, and recorded the song "Fly to Your Heart" for the soundtrack of the animated film Tinker Bell.
At age 16, Gomez signed with Hollywood Records, and formed her own production company, July Moon Productions. The company announced several projects, including the films What Boys Want and an adaptation of the novel Thirteen Reasons Why, neither of which was produced as originally planned. Gomez later served as an executive producer on a television adaptation of the novel.
In 2009, Gomez continued her television work on Disney Channel, reprising her role as Alex Russo in the crossover episode Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana on The Suite Life on Deck, and guest-starring on Sonny with a Chance. She co-starred with Demi Lovato in the Disney Channel television film Princess Protection Program. The pair recorded the song "One and the Same", included on the film's DVD release. Gomez next starred in Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, a television film based on the series. The film premiered in August 2009 to an audience of 11.4 million viewers and ranked as the second-highest-rated cable television film of all time, behind High School Musical 2. Roxana Hadadi of The Washington Post wrote that the film is carried by the performances of its young leads—Gomez, David Henrie and Jake T. Austin. Gomez recorded three songs for the series and film's soundtrack, including "Magic". Later that year, she voiced Princess Selenia in Luc Besson's hybrid live-action/animated film Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard.
File:Selena Gomez December 2010.jpg|thumb|upright|Gomez performing at the 2010 KISS FM Jingle Ball
Hoping to cross over into the music industry, Gomez formed the pop rock band Selena Gomez & the Scene under her deal with Hollywood Records, following earlier music work that included soundtrack contributions and a feature on a remix of Forever the Sickest Kids' "Whoa Oh! ". The group released three studio albums—Kiss & Tell, A Year Without Rain, and When the Sun Goes Down —all of which charted within the top ten of the US Billboard 200. They found mainstream success with singles such as "Naturally", "Who Says", and "Love You Like a Love Song", which became the group's highest-performing single in the US, peaking at number twenty-two on the Billboard Hot 100, where it spent 38 weeks. Billboard later ranked it as the biggest hit to peak at number twenty-two.
In 2010, Gomez portrayed Beezus Quimby opposite Joey King in the family comedy film Ramona and Beezus, an adaptation of the children's novel series by Beverly Cleary. The film received positive reviews; critic Roger Ebert described it as "a sweet salute," and found both actresses "appealing". She also reprised her voice role as Princess Selenia in Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds.
The following year, Gomez starred in the romantic comedy film Monte Carlo, alongside Leighton Meester and Katie Cassidy. She played a dual role as Grace and British socialite Cordelia Winthrop-Scott. In preparation for the part, she learned to play polo and received dialect coaching to perform two different British accents. The film received mixed reviews, and critics were divided on her dual performance, with some describing her portrayal of Cordelia—and her accent—as unconvincing. Gomez later made a cameo appearance in the film The Muppets. That year, she hosted the MuchMusic Video Awards and the MTV Europe Music Awards.