Selena Gomez finally spoke up about the online controversy involving her and Francia Raisa, a friend and kidney donor. When Raisa remarked “Interesting” on a post E! published on its Instagram regarding Gomez’s Rolling Stone quote about Taylor Swift being Gomez’s only “industry” friend, she attracted attention. She later deleted her comment. Many people assumed Gomez meant merely the music industry because she didn’t define which industry she was referring to. FYI Raisa is an actress.
Gomez’s full Rolling Stone quote was: “I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities,” she said. “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? [I realized] I just didn’t like who I was, because I didn’t know who I was.”
Fans noticed that Raisa appeared to unfollow Gomez on Instagram too. Raisa does not follow Gomez currently, but Gomez follows her.
Gomez wrote, “Sorry I didn’t mention every person I know,” in a TikTok comment regarding the commotion surrounding her failure to mention Raisa or her other pals in the comment or include them all in her documentary My Mind and Me. ans took a screenshot of her comment:
Raisa was reportedly there for Gomez’s 30th birthday celebration, according to the Rolling Stone article. Additionally, Gomez and Raisa just shared a TikTok video together:
In March 2021, Gomez and Raisa last publicly discussed Raisa’s kidney donation to Gomez. Gomez thanked Raisa for the “blessing” she had given her. “I am forever grateful to you.”
Gomez talked about how reluctant she was to ask Raisa to get tested to see whether she was a match when the two of them appeared on the Today Show in October 2017 to discuss Raisa giving her kidney to Gomez, whose own kidneys were failing due to her lupus.
“She lived with me in this interesting time where my kidneys were just done,” Gomez said. “That was it. I didn’t want to ask a single person in my life. The thought of asking somebody to do that was really difficult for me. She volunteered and did it—and let alone somebody wanting to volunteer, it is incredibly difficult to find a match. The fact that she was a match, I mean, that’s unbelievable. That’s not real.”
Raisa herself said, “One day, she [Gomez] came home, and she was emotional. I hadn’t asked anything. I knew that she hadn’t been feeling well. She couldn’t open a water bottle one day. And she chucked it, and she started crying. And I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And that’s when she told me. And she goes, ‘I don’t know what to do, the [donor wait] list is 7 to 10 years long. And it just vomited out of me. I was like, ‘Of course I’ll get tested.’”
Gomez objected, citing Raisa’s own demanding career, but Raisa said “I called her assistant and said give me the information, I want to do this.”
