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Selena Gomez Slams Body Shamers and Reveals Health Struggle: ‘I Don’t Have That Body’
Selena Gomez clapped back at body shamers that made nasty comments about her appearance, and she revealed a health struggle in the process.
After Selena, 32, attended a screening of her film Emilia Perez during the American French Film Festival at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles, fans took to TikTok to comment on her appearance at the event in a now-deleted video.
Several negative comments were reportedly made about her weight, and Selena took to the comments section to defend herself. While defending her appearance, she explained that her health struggles have caused her to gain weight.
“This makes me sick. I have SEBO in my small intestine. It flares up,” she wrote in the comments section, according to a screenshot obtained by The Daily Mail. “I don’t care that I don’t look like a stick figure. I don’t have that body. End of story. No I am NOT a victim. I’m just human.”
SIBO, which stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, “is an imbalance of the microorganisms in your gut that maintain healthy digestion,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. “When too many bacteria, or the wrong kind, populate your small intestine, it can lead to uncomfortable symptoms like gas and diarrhea.”
Selena slammed her critics 10 months after she opened up about her changing appearance in an Instagram Stories post in January. “Today, I realized I will never look like this again,” the “Rare” singer captioned a throwback photo of herself in a bikini from 2013. She then uploaded a more recent snapshot from 2023. “I’m not perfect but I am proud to be who I am … sometimes I forget it’s OK to be me.”
The Spring Breakers star has been open with her fans about her body image in the past, and she previously explained that she took her first social media hiatus in 2018 due to struggles with her appearance and her highly publicized split from Justin Bieber.
“I had just gotten my heart broken. I didn’t need to see what everyone was doing,” Selena told Fast Company at the time in October 2023. “Then there were those moments of not feeling positive about how I looked because of what I’d see on Instagram. Wow, I wish my body looked like that.”
Selena recalled that she had been publicly ridiculed after she lost her “teenager body” as she grew older in the spotlight. “None of the sample sizes were fitting, and that would make me feel embarrassed,” she continued. “Although how unrealistic is it to expect a normal woman’s body not to change?”
Another health issue that Selena has been open about is her battle with lupus, which she was diagnosed with in 2013. “Lupus is a chronic (long-term) disease that can cause inflammation and pain in any part of your body. It’s an autoimmune disease, which means that your immune system — the body system that usually fights infections — attacks healthy tissue instead,” according to the National Resource Center on Lupus.
“I was diagnosed with lupus, and I’ve been through chemotherapy. That’s what my break was really about. I could’ve had a stroke,” she told Billboard in 2015.
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