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What a decade it's been for the singer and actress, who was a 16-year-old alumna of Barney & Friends, the star of Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place and the future girlfriend of Justin Bieber when she signed up to make her big-screen debut playing Beezus Quimby.
After Wizards wrapped up in 2012, Gomez sought to shed her child-actor image with roles in the likes of the indie crime drama Spring Breakers and the action movie Getaway, and she adulted up her music too with the release of her debut solo album, Stars Dance.
While health issues and her off-and-on relationship with Bieber dominated half of her headlines through the ensuing years, the multitalented Texan persevered, continuing to act, make music and tour (she was Billboard Woman of the Year in 2017, with 7 million records sold), date other guys and amass fans, at one point becoming the most-followed person on Instagram. Gomez has also been busy using her lucrative platform, which includes 183 million followers on Instagram and 61.6 million on Twitter, to advocate for mental health awareness and stand up for racial equality and other important causes.
In recent years, she has branched out behind the camera as well, as an executive producer of 13 Reasons Why and the documentary Living Undocumented, both on Netflix.
Don't call it a comeback, but Gomez was all about taking back control of her story with the January 2020 release of Rare, her years-in-the-making third studio album—the title of which she had tattooed on her neck. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
"The reason why I've become so vocal about the trials and tribulations of my life is because people were already going to narrate that for me," Gomez said in an interview for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. "I wasn't going to have a choice because of how fast everything moves now. And most of the time, yes, it's not true, or it's an embellished version of what the truth is. I want to be able to tell my story the way that I want to tell it."
In another delicious turn of events, she's getting her own 10-part cooking show to premiere on HBO Max, with each episode featuring a chef joining her remotely and highlighting a different food-related charity.