Selena Gomez broke her silence on drama brewing online between her and her friend and kidney donor Francia Raisa. Raisa drew attention over the weekend when she commented “Interesting,” then deleted it on a post E! shared on its Instagram featuring Gomez's Rolling Stone quote about Taylor Swift being Gomez's only “industry” friend. Gomez didn't specify which industry she meant, but many assumed it was just the music industry. 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 commented on a TikTok about the drama around her not mentioning Raisa or her other friends in the comment or showing them all in her documentary My Mind and Me, saying, “Sorry I didn't mention every person I know.” Fans took a screenshot of her comment:
The Rolling Stone piece mentioned that Raisa was among the attendees at Gomez's 30th birthday party. Gomez and Raisa also recently appeared on Gomez's TikTok together:
Gomez and Raisa last had a public exchange about Raisa donating her kidney to Gomez in March 2021, with Gomez expressing her gratitude to Raisa, “Thank you for blessing me. I am forever grateful to you.”
When Gomez and Raisa spoke on the Today Show in October 2017 about Raisa donating her kidney to Gomez, whose own kidneys were shutting down due to her lupus, Gomez spoke about how hesitant she was to ask Raisa to get tested to see if she was a match.
“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.’"
While Gomez objected because of Raisa's own busy career, Raisa said, “I called her assistant and said give me the information, I want to do this.”
