Looking at the lavish and luxurious lives of stars, perhaps any of us admire and dream of them. But to achieve today’s success, in addition to the luck of having more talent than others, they also had to trade effort, sweat and tears. Among them, there are even many people who have risen from poor families, like Selena Gomez. She was not fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family, with parents who are stars with many relationships in showbiz. Even having a happy home is a luxury for Selena. Overcoming many hardships and challenges, she had to rise up and work hard on her own to gain the fame she has now.

Poor childhood, broken family

On July 22, 1992, couple Ricardo Gomez and Mandy Cornett welcomed daughter Selena Gomez in the city of Grand Prairie, Texas, USA. They named their child after the late singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Her father is of Mexican descent and her mother has ancestors from Italy, so Selena inherited her eyes, dark hair, and strong, attractive hybrid beauty.

Selena Gomez with her biological parents as a child

When Selena Gomez was born, her mother was only 16 years old, and her father was just a high school student. Selena’s grandparents often have to take care of their grandchild so that her parents can complete their studies. Their family at that time was struggling to face many financial difficulties. By the time Selena was 5 years old, her parents divorced. Mrs. Mandy then had to raise her daughter alone with a small income.

Selena recounted: “I remember my mother’s car often ran out of gas. We had to rummage around in the car, collecting every single coin to have money for gas. Because my mother never wanted to have to ask for money. grandparents”.

Mrs. Mandy said that they only had enough money to buy pasta at dollar stores (1 USD store) to make dinner. But if Selena wants to go to a music concert, her mother still tries to save money to help her daughter fulfill her wish.

Selena said emotionally: “My mother never talked about it like it was a big deal. When she was with me, she always acted strong. She took a big responsibility on her shoulders when she gave birth to me at the age of 16.” . My mother gave up everything for me, she worked 3 jobs at the same time, raised me, sacrificed her whole life for me.”

Having gone through such dark days, Selena couldn’t help but worry that there would be no bright future for them at that time: “I was heartbroken when my parents were no longer together, my mother. have to work hard to give me a better life and I can’t see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. I’m afraid I won’t be able to improve anything if I stay in Texas.”

A mother’s passion is passed on to her child

Selena Gomez’s passion for acting began when she watched her mother rehearse on stage. Mrs. Mandy recounted: “She was only 6 or 7 years old at that time. She came to watch a rehearsal with me, she just sat still to watch, not moving at all. On the way home, she didn’t move at all. say something, then suddenly blurted out: “Mom, I think if you act like this, it will be funnier.” I realized, oh no, my child will become an actress. At one time, she also recruited children in the neighborhood to be actors and practice being directors.

Since then, Selena Gomez has been actively attending casting auditions. In 2002, when she was 10 years old, she was chosen to play a girl named Gianna on the TV show “Barney and Friends”. Also here, Selena met her close friend Demi Lovato for the first time.

Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato in the show “Barney and Friends”

Selena Gomez recounted: “When I was a kid, I was very shy. I didn’t understand anything about the slang words commonly used in filming. I learned everything from Barney.”

While participating in “Barney and Friends”, the child actress also actively sought out other opportunities. She participated in the movies “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over”, “Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire”, even though she only played a small cameo role on screen.

Life-changing dreams come true

In 2007, with a lot of accumulated experience, Selena Gomez tried her hand at Disney and was assigned a small role by the company – singer Mikayla in the famous movie “Hannah Montana”. Compared to main star Miley Cyrus, Selena at that time was just a little-known actress.

Selena Gomez in “Wizards of Waverly Place”

But then, after many efforts, Selena achieved her first big success when Disney gave her the lead role in the new project “Wizards of Waverly Place”, a drama about the life of a family of witches. . Upon receiving the news, Selena and her mother quickly packed their bags and moved to Hollywood so she could pursue her acting career.

Thanks to her beautiful appearance and lovely acting, “witch” Selena Gomez quickly won the hearts of young viewers watching Disney Channel. The success of the film was also the moment when Selena, from a poor girl, officially became a new star of Hollywood. The salary she receives for each episode is up to 30,000 USD. Selena’s assets at that time, when she was only 15 years old, were estimated to be more than 2.7 million USD. No more difficult days, eating cheap spaghetti with her mother, Selena’s life seemed to turn a new page from now on.

Not stopping yet, Selena continued to be assigned the main role in other teen movies such as “Another Cinderella Story”, “Princess Protection Program”, “Monte Carlo”,… Thanks to that, she becoming an international star warmly admired by young people, his name is famous all over the world.

In addition to movies, Selena also ventured into music with some exciting music for teenage audiences. Including the song “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” – soundtrack of the movie “Another Cinderella Story”, a movie about the journey of a modern Cinderella to achieve her dream – in that song , Selena also sings about her own efforts: “Everyone says it’s hard to do what I want. They say I’m wrong, I shouldn’t believe in dreams. I hear them say So every day, they always make me listen, but they will never make me change my mind, no!”.

Tough challenges

Of course, no road to success is full of roses. When Selena Gomez released her first music album, she received all kinds of criticism, such as her voice being too bad, and her overuse of Auto-tune technology. Selena’s music products only reached “low” positions on the charts.

Selena Gomez in “Getaway”

As for movies, since leaving Disney, the young actress’ career has also begun to decline. Typically, her movie “Getaway” failed completely at the box office, even earning Selena a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award, Worst Actress category.

It seemed like she was about to “sink” like many other Disney stars – Vanessa Hudgens or Ashley Tisdale, but in 2011, Selena started dating Justin Bieber and the young couple’s love affair became a hot topic everywhere. newspaper for many years. Today they’re still a couple, tomorrow they’ll break up. Just the news of their breakup is enough to make Selena’s name appear in the media every day. But the downside of this love story also arose from there, she was scandalized by “stealing” her boyfriend, being accused of “using” Justin to become famous. Even after breaking up, Selena could not escape Justin’s shadow. Too tired of the controversy, she had to speak up: “Honestly, what I want the press to print is that I’m so tired of talking about my relationship with him.”

Paired with Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez became more famous, but also got into a lot of controversy

Not having enough headaches about her controversial love affair with Justin, in 2013, Selena also discovered that she had the autoimmune disease Lupus, causing side effects of depression and anxiety. The illness caused more difficulties for Selena’s career, causing her to cancel her Stars Dance tour and go to Dawn at The Meadows center for treatment. Because this center also specializes in treating addicted teenagers, rumors of Selena abusing stimulants have surfaced. These bad rumors forced her representative to confirm that Selena came here for treatment.

After months of being subjected to harsh words, Selena publicly confided: “I was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Lupus, and I went through chemotherapy. That’s what I did.” during my recent rest period, because if not treated, I could have had a stroke. I really want to tell everyone: “You guys don’t know anything. I had to go for chemotherapy. You guys are bastards.” I was so angry that I wanted to say it out loud. It’s terrible to walk into a restaurant and have everyone’s eyes on you, and you know exactly what they’re talking about. about myself. I locked myself up for a while until I felt confident and comfortable again.”

Malicious rumors and scrutiny about personal life and love affairs are the downsides of being a celebrity. Selena’s depression not only comes from Lupus, but it is also aggravated by those negative aspects. She struggled to overcome that terrible mental illness: “The noise in my head always drove me crazy. It made me depressed, made me not want to leave the house, talk to people.” other people and trust them. I don’t want to live a life like that.”

Returning after treatment, Selena Gomez’s film and music projects in the following years continued to become “failures”. If she were a weak person, she would have collapsed and given up. But because of her burning passion for art, by 2015, Selena had innovated and progressed in both style and music. She made a lot of impression with the single “Good For You”. This song became Selena’s first single to reach the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking her new success.

Selena’s subsequent singles also showed signs of improvement on the charts. After a difficult time, she seemed to want to prove to fans that she was truly back, especially naming the album “Revival”. Selena proudly said: “Great music is like this, it’s when you share your own story. I no longer care about people twisting my words. People have said enough. what they can say about me. I can’t let that stop me from making the music I’m passionate about, even the very personal melodies about my life.”

Meanwhile, in the film industry, the animated film “Hotel Transylvania 2” in which Selena voiced also achieved much success at the box office and was praised by critics. She became a star with huge appeal to young audiences and surpassed Taylor Swift to become the Queen of Instagram with the largest number of followers in the world.

Not resting on her laurels, Selena realized that she was often criticized for having too weak a voice, so she continuously improved her vocal ability. And the result is that now, Selena’s voice in live performances is getting better and better than before, making the audience recognize her efforts.

After the hits “Same Old Love”, “Hands to Myself”, Selena Gomez kicked off her new tour Revival, and also had a new hit with Charlie Puth – “We Don’t Talk Anymore “. I thought that girl was completely strong, able to stand. But then last September, Lupus and depression once again caused Selena to cancel her tour and go to a treatment center. This news caused a big shock to fans. Even for many months, Selena did not update social networks and no longer appeared in front of the media.

Selena Gomez in the treatment center for the second time

Only later, when she returned to showbiz, did she reveal the loneliness, emptiness and insecurity every time she had to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of audiences, causing her depression to relapse: “I felt I feel lonely while on tour. I feel depressed, anxious. I have panic attacks before going on stage, or after leaving the stage. Basically, I feel like I’m not good enough. , not capable enough. I feel like I can’t give my fans anything”.

Depression – it sounds simple, but it is a disease that has tormented many artistic stars. Because when they are famous people, they always have to endure slander about their appearance, false rumors about their private lives, and pressure from public opinion to maintain a perfect, exemplary image for young people. Over time, those pressures weigh heavily on their psychology, causing weak artists to collapse. Some people seek to eat more to alleviate this psychological illness, typically in the case of actor Wentworth Miller. Worse, some people abuse drugs and alcohol to forget about it, then eventually destroy their careers and fall into a dead end like Lindsay Lohan or Macaulay Culkin.

But when Selena realized she had a psychological problem, she clearly realized what she needed to do was seek support from doctors and professional treatment centers: “I had to stop everything.” , because even though I had everything, inside I still felt like I was broken. And I had to try to keep calm on the outside so as not to disappoint you. But the more I tried to hold back. If you feel like me, don’t let that situation continue.”

After a period of “hiding” for treatment, the young girl reappeared splendidly at the American Music Awards and was honored to take home an award. At work, she also continues to work tirelessly. No longer standing in front of the camera, Selena has now become a film producer and has had great success with the series “13 Reasons Why”. The song “It Ain’t Me” by her and Kygo also reached the Top 10 on the charts in the US and many other countries. All thanks to Selena’s tireless efforts in her artistic career!

Selena Gomez once said: “If I let all the negative things affect me, I wouldn’t have become the person I am today”. After each fall, the young star seemed to reappear even more brilliantly. She is living proof of the saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Despite the rumors that “Selena is so incompetent”, “Selena sings so bad”, “Selena only knows how to cheat on her boyfriend”, she still works hard every day, improving her presentation skills. to act. And even depression – the “number one enemy” of artists – cannot defeat Selena like many other stars. Maybe Selena’s talent is not comparable to some of her colleagues, but her strength, hard-working attitude, and her efforts on the journey to achieving what she dreams of are probably enough to make her stand out. many people must admire!