Selena Gomez was the keynote speaker at the virtual Teen Vogue Summit this weekend. While she attended the summit (virtually), Gomez touched on her activism for the Black Lives Matter movement
and the 2020 presidential election, during which she spoke with Stacey Abrams on a livestream interview. She said she was inspired by how much women advocate for each other. But, she added, she'd love to see more of that kind of support for women from men.
"I love how supportive women can be of other women and lift each other up," she told Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief, Lindsay Peoples Wagner. "And now these young girls can look up to women more than ever with our vice president, with people like Stacey Abrams, all of these women that truly are breaking the mold and they're doing things that are incredible...If anything, I would love to see men championing women more," she said. "I'm believing that this place of all these women just supporting each other is great, but we also need some support from men."
She added that the through-line of her career and success has been authenticity and self-care. She also plugged therapy and being open about mental health: "I think it's less scary when you talk about it. So that's some sense of freedom that I gained once I did," she said. "I think I had a moment where I felt different. Like, 'Why do I react this way? Why do I feel the way I do and nobody else does?’ and I had to figure that out. I didn't want just to stay in this place of confusion."
In an interview with ELLE.com in 2018, Gomez talked about the transformation she's seen in her life from the time she was 20 years old.
"I think everything in my life is being majorly downsized, in a very good way," she said. "I'm going back to simplicity. That's always who I’ve been. It's not me saying, 'I feel the best I’ve ever felt. It's me saying, 'I'm exactly where I am. And I'm so happy I'm in this place.' It's a lot of self-discovery. From 20 to 26? Oh my gosh. I feel like a totally different person."