Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez has demonstrated her range through acting roles across television and cinema alongside a recording career that scaled the upper reaches of the charts almost immediately and held its ground for years afterward. Her band Selena Gomez & the Scene delivered three buoyant contemporary pop albums between 2009 and 2011, each of which entered the Top Ten. Turning solo, she earned consecutive number-one albums with the more mature Stars Dance in 2013 and Revival in 2015 before exploring fresh textures through joint tracks with Kygo on “It Ain’t Me” and Marshmello on “Wolves.” She achieved her first Billboard Hot 100 summit with the introspective “Lose You to Love Me” in 2019, a ballad that examined her personal relationships and signaled greater candor in her songwriting. In 2021 she ventured into Latin pop for the first time via the Revelación EP. While headlining the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, she also became the focus of the revealing 2022 documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, which prompted the release of its title track, followed by the electronic-leaning “Single Soon” in 2023 and “Love On” in 2024.

Born in Texas in 1992, Gomez secured her initial break as a cast member on the children’s program Barney and Friends. Additional minor television parts followed until her selection by the Disney Channel during a national talent search in 2004 placed her on a faster track. Appearances on The Suite Life of Zach and Cody and Hannah Montana led to her own series, The Wizards of Waverly Place, which debuted in October 2007 and quickly rose to become one of the network’s signature shows. She balanced filming commitments for The Wizards of Waverly Place with further acting opportunities and an emerging music career.

Gomez first explored pop by contributing songs to Disney-related projects, including the theme for The Wizards of Waverly Place, additional tracks for its soundtrack, and material for the family film Another Cinderella Story. By 2009 she had formed the teen-pop group Selena Gomez & the Scene and signed with Hollywood Records. Their debut album, Kiss & Tell, arrived that year and earned gold certification, as did the 2010 follow-up A Year Without Rain. While continuing to shoot The Wizards of Waverly Place and making her feature-film debut in the 2010 adaptation of Ramona and Beezus, Gomez found her music drawing comparable notice.

As The Wizards of Waverly Place entered its final season in November 2010, Gomez redirected focus to the band, whose third album When the Sun Goes Down was tracked early in 2011 and issued later that year. She then paused musical activities to emphasize acting, and her first adult-oriented role in the 2013 film Spring Breakers confirmed she could move past teen fare. Returning to music with her fourth album—the first issued under her solo name—she incorporated dubstep, R&B, and EDM into her palette. Stars Dance, released in July 2013, opened at number one on the Billboard 200. The remainder of the year proved unsettled: she dismissed her management team and departed Hollywood Records. She soon recovered, securing a new agreement with Interscope. A final Hollywood Records release, the contractual hits package For You, appeared in late 2014 and included the self-written platinum single “The Heart Wants What It Wants.”

Early in 2015 Gomez appeared on Zedd’s EDM hit “I Want You to Know.” Capitalizing on that momentum, she issued her own single “Good for You,” produced by Sir Nolan and Nick Monson and featuring co-writer A$AP Rocky; the track anchored her 2015 Interscope debut Revival. Assembled with contributions from Mattman & Robin, Hit-Boy, Benny Blanco, Charli XCX, Julia Michaels, and Chloe Angelides, the album reflected extensive collaboration. Gomez served as executive producer and co-writer on six songs, rendering it her most autobiographical work to that point. Revival debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and yielded three Top Ten singles on the Top 40 chart. While touring behind the record, she halted performances to confront health complications tied to lupus and later disclosed that she had received a kidney transplant during her absence from public view.

Resurfacing late in 2016, Gomez teamed with Kygo on “It Ain’t Me” and Marshmello on “Wolves,” both of which reached the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017. The following year proved active: she starred in A Rainy Day in New York, executive-produced the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, and released the Top 20 single “Wolves” with Marshmello. She also put out solo tracks “Bad Liar” and “Fetish,” the latter featuring Gucci Mane. In 2018 she supplied “Back to You” to the 13 Reasons Why: Season 2 soundtrack, joined DJ Snake, Cardi B, and Ozuna on “Taki Taki,” and lent her voice to Benny Blanco’s “I Can’t Get Enough.” While preparing an album in 2019, she executive-produced the HBO documentary series Living Undocumented and appeared in Jim Jarmusch’s zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die. Near year’s end she unveiled the confessional ballad “Lose You to Love Me,” which became her first single to top the Billboard charts.

That release established the mood for her sixth album, Rare, whose songs examined facets of Gomez’s life with unprecedented directness. Produced with familiar collaborators including Mattman & Robin, Justin Tranter, and Julia Michaels, the project entered the Billboard 200 at number one in January 2020. The next year brought her first full-length Spanish-language effort, the Grammy-nominated Revelación EP, which included appearances by DJ Snake, Myke Towers, and Rauw Alejandro.

In 2021 Gomez began starring in the Hulu mystery-comedy Only Murders in the Building opposite Steve Martin and Martin Short. She also served as the central figure in director Alek Keshishian’s 2022 documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, which chronicled a six-year span and addressed her experiences with fame as well as physical and mental-health challenges following her lupus and bipolar-disorder diagnoses. To accompany the film she issued the single “My Mind & Me.” The non-album track “Single Soon,” produced by Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat, surfaced in August 2023, followed in February 2024 by the standalone single “Love On,” produced by Monsters & Strangerz and Isaiah Tejada. Both tracks registered on the Hot 100.