Selena Gomez wants fans to look at her now.
Given the Disney Channel alum’s style and aesthetic during the mid-2010s—at which point she was the most-followed user on Instagram—is constantly recirculated, she reflected on how it feels to have such a spotlight on her youth.
“I always make this joke where I think people want to freeze me in time to that period of my life,” she told People in an interview published Sept. 16. “I don’t know…maybe it was probably more interesting because I’m now chilling, which is great. But it was such a hectic period in my life…of course I had to rock a smoky eye. I was trying to be cool!”
And Gomez acknowledged that it can be difficult to have old photos of herself be the standard to who she is now.
“I think people always want me to look the way I did,” she admitted, “and that’s just not going to happen.”
Although Gomez was nodding toward her tendency to do more glammed up looks in her 20s—whereas now she is “really connecting with just natural beauty”—she also emphasized she isn’t afraid of getting older.
“Getting older has been so much fun,” the Only Murders in the Building star—who tied the knot with husband Benny Blanco last year—continued. “I’m not scared at all. I love getting older.”
The 34-year-old joked, “Yeah, things are going to change and things are going to sag, but you’re alive…I think age is just a number in many ways.”
Although Gomez’s fans have loved her since her Barney & Friends days, she has previously expressed that she’s happy to have grown beyond her past selves.
“I would tell her to just calm down, everything’s going to be fine on the other side,” Gomez told E! News in 2024 of what advice she’d have for her younger self. “It’s a bit overwhelming being in this industry for so long.”
As she put it, “I’m very grateful that I’m in a much more stable place.”
Meanwhile, Gomez has also shared frustration in the constant barrage of images comparing her current body to her old one.
“Today I realized I’ll never look like this again,” she wrote in a January 2024 Instagram post, alongside a photo of herself in a bikini as a teenager. “I’m not perfect but I am proud to be who I am—sometimes I forget it’s ok to be me.”
To see how Gomez has proven she wouldn’t want to be anybody else in every stage of her life, keep reading…
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