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Today, Selena Gomez made her American Vogue cover debut—a milestone for the former Wizards of Waverly Place actress. “I worked with Disney for four years,” Gomez told Vogue. “It’s a very controlled machine. They know what they represent, and there was, 100 percent, a way to go about things.” These days, Gomez is marching to the beat of her own drum, making tough calls like canceling her world tour (for the second time) in order to focus on herself and her health. She surrendered her cell phone and went into treatment for 90 days, she told Vogue—and it’s been working. It’s this kind of mindful thinking that her legions of “Selenators,” defined by the Urban Dictionary as people who love Selena Gomez and support her in everything she does, would totally understand. For those who may need a little additional clarity, here are five other things you may not have known about the one and only Selena Gomez.
1. Gomez is in an Instagram-free zone. She no longer has the app on her phone—and she doesn’t even have the password to her account (that classified information is in the possession of her assistant). “As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out,” Gomez told Vogue. “It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about. I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”
2. Gomez wants to set the record straight as to why she canceled her tour. (Twice.) And no, it was not an addiction, or an eating disorder, or burnout (exactly), all of which the tabloids may have led you to believe. “Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she told Vogue. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically, I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything . . . What I wanted to say is that life is so stressful, and I get the desire to just escape it. But I wasn’t figuring my own stuff out, so I felt I had no wisdom to share. And so maybe I thought everybody out there was thinking, This is a waste of time.” She knew that in order to be the best artist she could be, she first had to be her best self.
3. The singer starts every morning by throwing back a shot of ginger, or eating a piece on its own. “It’s so good,” she recently told a visibly ginger-averse James Corden during a Late Late Show episode of Carpool Karaoke. “It’s killing everything inside—all of the bad things.” Even better if she can wash it down with a #7 off the McDonalds’s drive-through menu, plus a medium Coca-Cola in one of the fast food chain’s to-go cups, featuring Gomez’s own song lyrics inscribed on the side, as seen in the clip. Gomez revealed in 2015 that she prepped for her performance at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show with a McDonald’s meal backstage; however, as she told Vogue in May, her approach to staying Revival tour–ready is somewhat different. “I always have water, tons of water. It’s even in my bathroom because I used to be so bad at drinking water, and I want to stay hydrated,” Gomez explained. “I do two carrots, ginger; I do one piece of celery—I know, that’s lame, but one—and then half of a beet. Those are the things I always keep around.”
4. Britney Spears was a “huge inspiration” to Gomez when it came time to shed her Disney image. “Once Disney was over, I was like, ‘Oh, shit,’ ” Gomez later said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I had to learn to be myself.” Of course, she got a little help from a belly-dancing Spears circa “I’m A Slave 4 U.” “The video is so hot; it’s incredible,” Gomez said in 2013. “I definitely want to do that with my transition.” Four months later, Gomez channeled the original pop princess during her first solo tour, Stars Dance, citing everything from the performances to the costumes. Remembering the first concert she ever attended—Britney Spears, coincidentally—she revealed her inner fangirl. “We were in the nosebleeds,” Gomez said. “I got the T-shirt and glow sticks, and I just remember it being the highlight of my life! I felt like I was on cloud nine!”
5. Gomez has seven tattoos “and counting.” The story behind her most prominent permanent ink—a four-inch Arabic inscription etched below her right shoulder that translates to “love yourself first”—centers on a decidedly more short-lived moment she shared with a fan. “This is . . . probably the one that means the most to me,” Gomez told GQ in April. “I did a concert in Dubai, and a 16-year-old came up to me when I was going through a rough time. She said, ‘I just wish that you would love yourself first.’ ” The singer debuted her latest body art on Instagram in 2014, eliciting 1 million likes and inspiring countless similarly inked Selenators: “A lot of my fans have actually gotten this tattoo,” she has said. “I love telling that story.” Two years later, the singer took to social media again to announce the news that a line of custom replica temporary tattoos would be included in her official Revival tour merch—just one, or rather, seven more reasons to see Selena Gomez live.
Selena Gomez on her new album and combat boots on the red carpet at the 2016 Met Gala: