Selena Gomez opens up about lupus and mental health struggles in heart-breaking documentary

Selena Gomez has opened up about going through an incredibly dark time in her life in her new documentary and in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

The 30-year-old pop star - who started out in the industry as a child and achieved global fame as a teenager when she starred in the leading role of Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place - explained that depression had crept in by the time she reached her 20s  and often thought the world would be a "better place" if she wasn't here.

She said: "I'm going to be very open with everybody about this: I've been to four treatment centers.

"I think when I started hitting my early twenties is when it started to get really dark, when I started to feel like I was not in control of what I was feeling, whether that was really great or really bad. It would start with depression, then it would go into isolation. Then it just was me not being able to move from my bed. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. My friends would bring me food because they love me, but none of us knew what it was. Sometimes it was weeks I’d be in bed, to where even walking downstairs would get me out of breath. I thought the world would be better if I wasn’t there."

The Only Murders in the Building star - who revealed her bipolar diagnosis in April 2020 - went on to explain that she had "never fit in" with a certain group of people and claimed that her only show business friend is fellow pop star Taylor Swift as she questioned whether the riches she has attained through her career have really made her "happy."

She told Rolling Stone: "I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities. My only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift], so I remember feeling like I didn’t belong. I felt the presence of everyone around me living full lives. I had this position, and I was really happy, but … was I? Do these materialistic things make me happy?"

Selena also revealed that she may not be able to carry her own children.

The 30-year-old pop star received a kidney transplant in 2017 from her best friend as a result of suffering from lupus and explained that the idea that she may have to turn to a surrogate if she ever decides to have children is "very present" in her life but because of the medication she takes to combat bipolar disorder she will become a mother in whatever way she is "meant to."

After revealing that she had visited a friend who was trying to get pregnant and afterwards sat in her car crying, she said: "Donated kidneys don't last forever. Which is fine. I might be like, ‘Peace out,’ anyway. That [the idea of not being able to carry my own children] is a very big, big present thing in my life. [But] however I’m meant to have [children], I will. I think there’s something over me that is maybe my bipolar that kind of just keeps me humble — in a dark way,"

The songstress also explained that when she first left a treatment facility on a multitude of drugs for bipolar, she was initially "gone" and was eventually guided by a psychiatrist but had to learn how to "detox" from the treatment when she gave up all but two of the treatments had to and accept that she had been diagnosed with the mental disorder.

She told Rolling Stone magazine: "It was just that I was gone. There was no part of me that was there anymore. My psychiatrist really guided me.  But I had to detox, essentially, from the medications I was on. I had to learn how to remember certain words. I would forget where I was when we were talking. It took a lot of hard work for me to (a) accept that I was bipolar, but (b) learn how to deal with it because it wasn’t going to go away."

The interview comes in light of Selena’s raw new documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, directed by Alek Keshishian, which is out now on the Apple TV+ streaming service.

Where to get help:

• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO (available 24/7)
• Youth services: (06) 3555 906
• Youthline: 0800 376 633
• What's Up: 0800 942 8787 (11am to11pm)
• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)
• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
• Helpline: 1737

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

- Bang! Showbiz