Selena Gomez Confirms She No Longer Uses Email and Has Not Been on Social Media for Months

In a recent episode of the Good Hang podcast, host Amy Poehler welcomed actor, singer, and entrepreneur Selena Gomez. The conversation delved into Gomez’s professional and personal life, covering her on-set dynamics with Steve Martin and Martin Short, the inspiration behind her successful company Rare Beauty, and her approach to social media. The episode also featured a call-in from Martin Short, who shared his thoughts on working with Gomez.

A “Total Pro” on Set

Martin Short began his segment by joking about his previous guest appearance on the podcast and his relationship with Poehler. He then went on to praise Selena Gomez, whom he had never met before filming Only Murders in the Building. Short confessed he had been anxious about what Gomez would be like, recalling thinking, “What is Selena Gomez going to be like? What if she’s a nightmare. What if she’s mean to people? It’s kind of rude.” He said that the first time he met her in the makeup room, “she smiled at me, and I went, ‘Ah, ah, we’re fine, yeah.'”

Short described Gomez as an “old pro” and said that they have become “very, very close” on set. He also noted a stark contrast in fan behavior when Gomez is present, recounting, “When Selena joins us, there’s about 120 paparazzi, and they’re there all day, and I’m sure they’re just waiting for her to fall or stumble or mean, you know, that would therefore they could, you know, make more money from it.” He said that Gomez handles the attention with grace, but the only time he ever saw her get “a little Stern is when they were a little abrupt to like, this 14 year old fan of hers.”

The conversation later shifted to on-set improvisation, which the cast refers to as “freedom takes.” Gomez confirmed that they regularly experiment with new jokes, saying that she’ll often be “right in the middle of them figuring it out” and thinks, “it’s funny, guys, it’s funny. We got it.” She also shared a hilarious anecdote about Richard Kind getting lost while walking down a hall, a moment that had the cast in stitches: “He just like walked all the way down. And we watched him walk past the door that he was supposed to open to go to the next door and knock, and then the other person answered from the other door and looked down the hall, and he goes, Oh, well, I didn’t know that. Yes, you did.”

Building a Business with Purpose

Poehler spoke to Gomez about the massive success of Rare Beauty, a business she founded and runs. Gomez shared that her relationship with makeup started young, as her mother was a makeup artist at MAC. “She would give me all of her products that she was done with, and she would do them for photo shoots in Dallas, Texas… it was really fun for me to play with,” Gomez said.

She explained that accessibility was a key part of the brand’s design due to her personal experience with lupus. “I have a few medical things, but I have arthritis in my fingers, and that’s due to my lupus,” Gomez stated, recalling a time when she couldn’t open a water bottle. “And we somehow inherently made the products easy to open. And then we realized, wait, they kind of have to be that way. And then we started to make every product with the intention of anybody who have dexterity problems.”

Gomez expressed her passion for the product line, noting that the liquid blushes have been her “pride and joy.” She said it felt like she was a chemist, working to perfect the colors and textures: “I think the texture and the way we’d play with it, and all the colors, all of it, feels like you’re a chemist, in a way, and you can just feel it and smell it even.”

Navigating Fame and Finding Balance

Gomez also addressed the challenge of maintaining her mental health and boundaries while being a public figure. When asked by Poehler if she ever feels overwhelmed, Gomez admitted, “That isn’t always true, though,” despite what her co-stars might say. She said she finds her focus by dedicating her full “love and attention” to whatever she is doing at that moment, whether it’s filming or working on Rare Beauty.

She revealed that she no longer uses email and prefers texts, a trait she joked was influenced by her co-stars. On social media, Gomez said she has a healthy relationship with her platforms, but she has “not been on social media for a few months now,” even when she posts. “I don’t look at anything,” she stated. “I don’t let anything in that I don’t need, because, yeah, it’s not where I am.” She acknowledged that “if it didn’t come from me, it’s 90% false,” and emphasized, “I just love being able to say, this is where I am, and I’m enjoying it.”

Poehler also asked Gomez what she says “no to now that she didn’t before,” in terms of guarding her energy. Gomez said it’s still difficult: “It’s very difficult for me to say no to to people that I get to encounter.” She noted that she feels she owes a lot of people a “smile, hug, you know, picture,” and if she doesn’t, “it’s because I’m, I’m either really having a hard time dealing with my anxiety, or I’m late.”

A Life Filled with Music, Cooking, and Love

The conversation concluded with a discussion of Gomez’s love of music and cooking. She shared that her father was a DJ and her mother was a creative who listened to classical music, while her dad’s side of the family played a lot of Tejano music. She said she particularly loves Linda Ronstadt’s Spanish album, describing Tejano music as “so musically charged. Yeah, the instruments make everything sound so grand, and then you feel like you want to move.” She also noted that her voice changes when she sings in Spanish, finding it “so weird.”

Gomez also spoke about her cooking show, Selena + Chef, saying the concept was to show that she “simply don’t know how” to cook. She admitted that some of the intricate recipes took her “five to seven hours to do it.” She then praised her fiancé, Benny Blanco, for his love of cooking, describing his therapeutic approach to cooking and his constant effort to improve recipes. “He always says he can make it better,” she said, calling it the “most adorable thing.” She joked about his constant “tweaking” of dishes, even telling her after trying a dish she made, “Well, you know, I would, um, I probably would have added this, but it’s very good.”

Amy Poehler wrapped up the episode by congratulating Gomez on all her success and happiness and encouraging listeners to donate to Blood Cancer United.

How to Listen/Watch:

You can listen to the full Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast episode featuring Selena Gomez on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch video clips of the episode on YouTube.