Selena Gomez says she felt 'ashamed' shooting an album cover: 'I'm not an overly sexual person'
- Selena Gomez said that she was "ashamed" after shooting one of her album covers.
- Gomez explained during a Hollywood Reporter comedy roundtable that the cover was too sexualized.
Selena Gomez said that she was unhappy with one of her album covers because it was "overly sexual."
The "Only Murders in the Building" star participated in a roundtable interview for The Hollywood Reporter with other comedy actors from hit shows such as Quinta Brunson from "Abbott Elementary," and Amy Schumer from "Life & Beth."
During the conversation, Schumer brought up how Gomez was sexualized from a young age as a Disney child star and had to deliberately reject that image as an adult.
"That's really unfair," Gomez said in response. "I actually did an album cover and I was really ashamed after I did it. I had to work through those feelings because I realized it was attached to something deeper that was going on."
Gomez added: "It was a choice that I wasn't necessarily happy that I made, but I think that I've done my best — at least I try to be myself. I'm not an overly sexual person. Sometimes I like to feel sexy, but that doesn't mean it's for somebody else. It can be for me."
While Gomez did not specify which album she was referring to, the "Hands to Myself" singer once appeared nude for the cover of her 2015 album "Revival."
In 2020, Gomez told Allure that she felt external "pressure" to be more sexual in music videos for songs lifted from that album.
"I just did things that weren't really me," she said. "There was pressure to seem more adult on my album, 'Revival.' [I felt] the need to show skin... I really don't think I was [that] person."
During the Hollywood Reporter interview, Gomez also explained why she is not on social media anymore.
"The biggest part of that is you're seeing all of these other people and I can't look that way," she said. "It's impossible. I don't find it attainable and the moment I'm not on it, everything else becomes real."
In the past, Gomez has been candid about growing up as a child star and her negative relationship with social media.
During a Television Critics Association (TCA) panel last year, Gomez said she had "signed my life away to Disney" when working on "Wizards of Waverly Place" and other Disney projects during her teenage years. She also told Vogue that it was "violating" having the paparazzi follow her around during those years.
Earlier this year, Gomez said during an interview with InStyle that taking a break from social media was "the best decision that I've ever made for my mental health."
"At one point Instagram became my whole world, and it was really dangerous," she said. "In my early 20s, I felt like I wasn't pretty enough. There was a whole period in my life when I thought I needed makeup and never wanted to be seen without it."