Selena Gomez might portray the pretty and petite Phi Lambda poster child in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, due in theaters May 20, but she’s certainly more multidimensional than her Greek life-loving counterpart offscreen.
The actress-slash-singer has been steadily working ever since she was in elementary school hanging out with Barney & Friends, and yet she’s still constantly keeping her ultra-devoted legions of fans on their toes guessing what she’ll break out with next.
Selena’s Revival tour has been about way more than just music; the gal’s been baring her soul lately, and we can’t get enough.
Here are a few other things we dig about SelGo.
She’s making her 11-year-old self proud right now.
Selena Gomez first broke onto the scene before she was celebrating double-digit birthdays, but she’s always been a girl with a plan. Even then she knew she was destined to be a double threat with strong singing and acting careers in full swing. Mission accomplished!
She refuses to be defined by you know who anymore.
Yes, she was in a high-profile relationship that went back and forth and earned the front page of many tabloids in its time. But that’s over now, and she is ready to move on. Selena made as much clear when she told Rolling Stone, “I am so beyond talking about that, and him.” (Cue dramatic hand-dust gesture.)
She’s a really good friend.
There’s a reason Selena Gomez is, was and hopefully always will be the senior Swifty (that is, Taylor Swift squad member). They’re “sisters.” The two first became pals back in ‘08 after pairing up with the Jonas Brothers (Selena was with Nick, while Taylor dated Joe), and the sis-mance was instant. They’ve since seen other fellas come and go, but the one constant has been each other.
She loves junk food as much as the rest of us.
Selena has a healthy appreciation for comfort food -- she revealed to W Magazine that she and Taylor Swift have a special bond with their local Chili’s.
She knows how to make the best out of a bad situation.
That time we got stuck in an elevator in Paris... pic.twitter.com/14s6xRliqh
— Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) March 8, 2016
Getting stuck on an elevator has to rank among the most common worst-fears list for most people, but Selena Gomez, a darling of the digital age, saw it as yet another key opportunity to whip out her smartphone and document the exact moment she was rescued from her Parisian prison.
She’s not afraid to let her own fandemonium flag fly.
Selena Gomez is all of us when it comes to meeting a favorite icon. OK, OK, not exactly like us since she does get celeb perks like backstage access, but when she hit Las Vegas and caught Celine Dion’s show, she was as in it as anyone, singing along to the classics in a terrible screen-print shirt that she definitely had to have.
She’s got a delightfully disturbing party trick.
Gotta love a girl who doesn’t take herself too seriously, and if you ever get the chance to party with Selena, you might just get to watch her perform her spitting-gum-in-the-air-and-catching-it-again routine.
While being treated for lupus, she let the haters think what they wanted to.
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Selena shut down speculation that her withdrawal from the spotlight circa 2013 had anything to do with poor life choices, telling Billboard Magazine that she’d actually been diagnosed with lupus and underwent chemotherapy treatment at the time. Despite what was being said about her all the while, Selena kept quiet about the illness for two years and shared the story in her own time.
She’s got a big heart.
Since being appointed as a UNICEF ambassador in 2009, Selena has traveled to Ghana and Chile with the organization, lending a hand with its efforts to increase child-development education opportunities to the less fortunate across the globe.
She launched an eco-friendly clothing line.
Like many of her teen-dream contemporaries of the early aughts, Selena tried her hand at the designer game, but she set her “Dream Out Loud” for Kmart collection apart from others in two ways: (1) The boots and jewelry items do in large part look like her own style choices, and (2) They were eco-friendly items, made of recycled or organic materials. We wish Kmart still carried them.
She’s willing to go the extra mile for a role.
Being the most followed person on Instagram comes with the price of endless recognizability, but if there’s a role on the line, she’s willing to make some drastic changes. She told W, “I’ll cut my hair, I’ll shave it, I’ll dye it. I’d go there in order for people to let Selena go.”
She’s got the chops to do drama.
Everyone knows that Selena can be counted on for a lighthearted laugh and many moments of cuteness -- her days as a Disney Channel princess solidified that perception -- but she’s also been tapping into a few more serious notes lately.
From her existential monologue in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers to her emotionally charged scenes in Rudderless to her savvy synthetic CDO tutorial cameo in The Big Short, she’s been quietly shelving her Wizards of Waverly Place alter ego and bringing something new to the table lately.
Next up is the adaptation series of 13 Reasons Why, a novel about a high school student whose suicide becomes an exposition of all the ills of teen abuse. It’s so important to her that Selena’s held on to the project for the half a decade for Netflix to pick it up and finally put the wheels into motion.
Catch Selena Gomez in Neighbors 2 in theaters May 20.
