How Selena Gomez’s past led to her today: from control freak to happy (tea on relationship with Benny Blanco)
This post was written in June 2024 so please keep that in mind when reading it, as the inside information may not seem relevant to today's news (Selena getting engaged), but inside tea is inside tea.
Angela and Alana you should be institutionalized!
“I get the industry is small, but she’s genuinely possessive/obsessed with Justin.” — my source
Consider this post an updated Selena Gomez: As A Person post
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco’s romance shocked many people whether that’s because fans expected “more” for Selena or because Benny was a good friend of Justin Bieber’s… either way, fans aren't too proud of this romance. Still, Selena loves to flaunt it whenever she can.
Selena has always been a mess as anyone who has read this blog for the past decade already knows. If she’s not battling a secret 10-year-long drug addiction then she’s engaging in self-sabotage and if she’s not doing that then she’s losing her marbles online and the pattern continues.
I was happy for Selena when she announced her relationship with Benny Blanco because it was her shedding her public persona and giving us some insight into what her life looks like behind closed doors; where she is dating different people behind the scenes and she is as emotional and irrational as she’s been presenting herself.
“She [Selena] actually exhibits how she was acting then publicly now” -my source
How Selena’s Self-Sabotaging Behavior Impacted Her Now
My Mind and Me
To spare you guys with the decade-long self-sabotage voyage Selena has been on which led her to eventually choose a partner like Benny Blanco, I’m going to sum this up as best as I can.
For a huge part of Selena’s life and career, she has gotten away with many things. She’s gotten away with treating people how she wants to, backstabbing friends, hiding a drug addiction, using other people for gain, and the list goes on and on.
For a huge part of her life, it worked.
She was the girl everyone felt bad for cause douchebag Justin Bieber broke her heart and she was the only one who could’ve tamed him.
She pretended to have a love for music and went on an “iconic” (in the grand scheme of things, was it really that iconic?) Revival World Tour, she served face, hair, body, nails, and everything in between.
She pretended to “kill them with kindness” when in reality she was not known for kindness behind closed doors—actually known for the opposite, she disregarded people who really cared for her and treated them like things she could pick up and put down based on how she’s feeling, and it all came crashing down on her all at once.
Another main factor in all of this was the fact that Selena was always insecure and this played a role in her relationship with Benny.
She never felt good enough and it made her do weird things. It made her enjoy watching people practically beg for her attention and love.
“Selena was that child who never felt good enough and her upbringing in Hollywood was always under this belief that she wasn’t as talented as the rest which is why she needed to be smart and seize opportunities before others. Her mom had a huge hand in making Selena the way she is because she taught Selena how to be an opportunist and use things to her advantage.”
— my source
Editing Alana: the fact that this was written in June, but the Emilia Perez press tour over the last 2 months has proven this exact behavior…
For a while, Selena enjoyed playing the “lying” game. She would be someone else in public and put on this fake cast of confidence when in reality, all her lying (or deceitfulness) came from an insecurity that nobody would care about her on her own.
She wasn’t the best of singers, she didn’t wow anyone with her acting, and her most iconic role, Alex Russo, was really just her playing herself.
So going into adulthood Selena felt like a fraud, and she projected many of her insecurities on her friends and most importantly on Justin.
Selena took the role of Spring Breakers so she could prove to herself and everyone else that she could act in a risky movie and do something “less typical” of her.
Spring Breakers Movie
During this time, her peers Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato already shed their Disney image in a very aggressive way. Miley was doing Bangerz and Demi was speaking about heavy drug use and rehab.
Selena wanted to shed the Disney act and saw how Miley and Demi did it but she was terrified that the only thing she had to fall back on was her Disney audience.
“Selena’s team always relied on her Disney audience which is why out of the 3 girls, Selena maintained her vanilla image for the longest. They always thought if worse comes to worse she can go back to being Alex Russo, which is why her team always played a game of smoke and mirrors, constantly testing the waters with how honest Selena could be in public. She waited 10 years to finally showcase some of the ‘real Selena’.”
—my source
Her talents never felt good enough, especially being in a pool with people who could sing, perform, and act.
Even though I like some of Selena’s songs and she does a good job with what she has, I’m sure it can be very easy to feel insecure in an industry built on competition and tearing a person down.
As a result, Selena relied heavily on her charm and looks. She used her charm, looks, and manipulative personality to go far in life.
My Mind and Me
Selena’s 2015 Revival era was the final product of Selena’s hard work come to life.
She went viral for photos more than she did for her songs. She was the most followed person on Instagram because she couldn’t get an achievement for music or acting, so she made sure to get one that relied on her looks with the false illumination that she was more powerful than she actually was.
I mean she left the caption from the snap video on purpose but made sure to specify that it’s not her who wrote that so she doesn’t get called egotistical.
It wasn’t pretty behind closed doors.
While Selena was getting praised for being the most followed woman on Instagram, she knew behind closed doors that the majority of it was a show of smoke and mirrors and buying followers.
That deep insecurity in Selena was constantly ringing in her head. While her fans felt one way, Selena felt another.
“In the later years to come her friends started to give her lectures about how she couldn’t keep living a lie for others. They told her she was risking her happiness just so social media could cheer for a while. She also started to low-key hate her fans because she saw how vain and judgmental they were. This is why in the years to come, she broke her relationship with them, letting assistants talk to them under the pretense that it’s Selena.”
—my source
I mean…would you feel comfortable around people like this?
How Selena’s Downfall Allowed Her To Worry Less About Her Image
My Mind and Me
When everything fell apart in Selena’s life, she started to finally understand how fragile her foundation was. It was all practically built on insecurities and lies.
2019-2021 were some of the hardest years for Selena. She got hit with her karma so badly that I genuinely could not believe what I was seeing and hearing.
Selena would admit to her friends that karma has finally caught up to her because of her actions and now she just awaits death. (Self-aware queen, but no seriously she told her friends she’s waiting for death to come)
My Mind and Me
Things were HORRIBLE behind the scenes for our girl Selena. There was a secret OD that happened right after the 2019 AMAs, she was secretly in rehab for half of 2020, and there were days when she was so weak physically and mentally that she couldn’t get out of bed for days.
It was brutal and friends like Raquelle Stevens and Ashley Cook watched it all.
This is why in Selena’s documentary, My Mind and Me, all you saw was a very fragile and disturbing version of Selena, but no explanation of how she got there.
My Mind and Me
I’ve already told you guys in grave detail about those years for Selena. I’m trying not to repeat so much of the same information so you guys don’t hit me with “This isn’t new tea!!!” but it’s kind of hard to tell a story when you guys have amnesia.
ANYWAY—
Karma hit Selena so badly, that she needed to step back and reevaluate her entire life.
This is why she slowly started to shed the perfect vanilla image she had in 2016 and she started to open up about going to AA/NA meetings, having bipolar disorder, struggling with depression, mental health, lupus, and everything in between.
So how does this bring us to Selena dating Benny? Well, Selena used to think just like her fans.
After all like fan, like idol.
She used to believe that she could only be seen with the hottest thing. That she was too pretty to settle down with someone ugly, she was too famous to date less than her on the fame scale, and she could charm just about anyone.
Again, she was battling the insecurity that she didn’t have talent, so she needed vanity to succeed like looks and a famous hot boyfriend.
Maybe it would’ve worked out for her, HAD SHE TREATED PEOPLE BETTER.
Selena knew that she had people wrapped around her finger—that with one call to Justin, he’d ditch whatever girl he was seeing for her (it happened every time).
She was everyone’s celebrity crush. Even new artists coming up on the scene gave her attention and she finally achieved the status she’d been dying to achieve as a young Disney star… and it all got to her head.
Suddenly nobody wanted her. Justin was married to the same girl she used to laugh at, the actors and artists who wanted her before suddenly ran away from her now, the beauty she used to flaunt faded and aged badly, her confidence was shot, her music flopped, and her health was in a crisis.
She stopped caring so much about things like vanity and music success. She was chasing that for too long.
She was a singer who couldn’t sing trying not to feel bad about herself in a pool with other successful Disney peers. She was always scared to take time off for music and give that time to acting because she knew she was more famous for music back then. So she always felt like she needed to put on a fake show to the public and by doing that she kept hiding the real Selena.
“When Selena is invested in her music, you can tell that it’s good and there is an effort in it, but when she’s not invested in it, she’s releasing songs from 2017 that make people think she has no musical growth (….) she felt like she was constantly living a lie and she knew she kept self-sabotaging but she didn’t know how to stop either.” —my source
She enjoyed playing the same manipulative game she swore was done with and her karma was getting most guys to turn her down after hanging out with her.
So while we all see Benny as weird, ugly, and creepy, Selena is happy to find some sort of genuine love.
Selena and Benny
Getty Images
Benny wasn’t Selena’s first choice. She tried giving a shot to many different people behind closed doors.
She tried giving it a shot with Dylan O’Brien who had the biggest crush on her in 2011, but yet in 2021, it was apparently him who ghosted her when they started to talk.
Deuxmoi insinuating that Dylan has ghosted Selena before after rumors of a date but nothing was ever public so maybe it didn’t go well.
She tried giving it a shot with Drew Taggart from the Chainsmokers yet after paps caught them holding hands Selena declared she was single a day later. (Her fans jumped to say she ‘ghosted him cause she knew she could do better’ but I’ve met guys like Drew Taggart and I’m telling you, you’re not getting a chance to ghost them first.)
My sources told me about other secret relationships she’s had from lowkey famous people to business owners, CEOs, casual friends, and basketball players and yet they never work out.
Back in 2016, the excuse used to be that Selena only wanted to be publicly tied down to Justin, so she never made any of her relationships public and while that was still true in the years 2021 and 2022, Selena eventually knew she should stop living a lie in the public eye and showcase a real boyfriend, but she didn’t have any real luck before Benny.
Selena even spoke about this in public saying she felt like her dating life was cursed.
Behind closed doors, she was telling friends she felt like karma was hitting her at all angles and nobody wants her anymore.
This has to be some God-given karma because even the Italian businessman I told you guys about years ago, Andrea Iervolino, never took off. She was in love with him and he was attractive, successful, and rich. He was even cozying up to her at her 30th birthday dinner party and the media started to take notice of him.
I do have it on good authority to believe that Selena enjoys being with someone more famous. Even though Andrea seemed like a good match, him being part of a different industry, being less famous, and living in Europe didn’t work for Selena either.
Benny was like a breath of fresh air for Selena.
She was so intrigued by how he could be such a public mess and be successful at the same time.
He’s such an unkept mess and he’s happy about it.
Dating Benny publicly is Selena’s way of nourishing all the lies she kept behind closed doors.
“She likes the fact that he is a mess. Selena likes that she is being seen with someone whose reputation is bizarre and whose looks aren’t ideal. It’s freeing for her to finally stop chasing destination happiness.” — my source
My source says that Benny and Selena have a lot of similarities. They both have a love for cooking, watching movies, eating their favorite foods, and making bad jokes.
She also likes him a lot. You know in those cliche movies where the popular beautiful girl finds herself weirdly drawn to and liking the “nerd” or “weirdo”? Yeah that’s Selena and Benny.
Plus Selena behind closed doors is kind of a “weirdo” herself. She makes inappropriate jokes and finds Benny hilarious while most people find his jokes to be rude and gross.
“Lol I’m obsessed with you” and it’s the worst video you’ve ever seen…
I’ll never forget when my source in 2013 told me “Trust me…you do NOT wanna see what’s on her phone.” I was so disturbed by that disclaimer I never forgot it.
The point of the story is that Selena can get down with someone like Benny cause you guys don’t know who she is behind closed doors. You put her on a pedestal that she herself never held.
I keep seeing her fans meltdowns about how “this Selena (2013-2018) would NEVER date Benny” but it’s like…you didn’t even know that Selena.
In fact THAT Selena (you know the Selena from 2013-2017) might’ve been even weirder than this Selena now.
On the topic of Justin & Benny having been close for years and Selena’s obsessive nature with Justin, I was told:
“Selena and Justin have been in the industry for so long that it’s hard for them to not run in similar circles. I wouldn’t say him being close to Justin was the reason she dated him but I do know she enjoys that fact very much so. It’s like another win for her whenever something is about Jelena again.” -my source
Benny Blanco also has a big obsession with Justin Bieber pic.twitter.com/BEo1C2AXIO
— Selena Gomez Charts (@selenagchart) December 12, 2024
My source also said that as much as Selena dating Benny publicly means she is more open about her life to the public eye, it’s also hard for Selena to break some of those crushing habits and go back to how she used to be.
“I get the industry is small, but she’s genuinely possessive/obsessed with Justin.” — my source
Her social media activity is so bizarre.
This is a fact my source has been telling me for years. For some weird reason, Selena’s obsession with Justin trumps all other behavior. It’s so weird that it’s fascinating how even after five years of marriage and a kid on the way she’s still somehow involved.
And leave it to Justin to open the door for her too.
“Selena gets the confidence to be bold about Justin and Hailey because something is directing her back to Justin. She would never be that bold about liking Jelena videos unless she knew she had something over Hailey.” -my source
This was in early 2023 before Justin cut off all contact with Selena after her meltdown about Hailey.
My source also tells me that Selena enjoys getting gifted expensive things from Benny. Benny is extremely successful and he has made some of the biggest hits we know today. Selena likes being tied down to someone who has made massive music hits and him being her boyfriend gives her some ease that he could get a hit for her if she wanted to go back to music.
My source says that behind closed doors Selena sees it as “prestige” to date a guy like Benny who had a hand in almost all of the biggest hits we know today.
“As much as Selena prefers acting over music and that acting is her true passion, she still does get a thrill when she has a hit song or is doing something related to music and it’s a success. She misses the feeling of getting an award and being cheered on onstage and knows that it’s gonna take a while before she can get that type of love on an acting award show. The issue is her confidence is shot down which is why it’s been years since she last touched a stage.” —my source
I always thought that since Selena is someone who seizes her opportunity much better than her peers, her dating Benny does come with a plus. As much as her fans hate him because he is not attractive, does weird things on social media, and isn’t put together, there is a lot of benefit to being tied down to Benny.
Also, my source does tell me that sometimes Selena flips out on Benny more than one would think.
“I see her fans trying to spread the narrative that Selena is under Benny’s control and while I do know that when Selena dates a guy she makes him her whole world, I have heard from [—] that she could be ‘nicer to him’” -my source
Their relationship is serious and if it wasn’t, Selena wouldn’t be as open as she is on social media about it. Many people are suspecting an engagement and that’s not something that is off the table as it could happen sooner than later.
New post coming next about their engagement!
I hope you guys enjoyed this post! Leave your comments down below and I will do my best to answer your questions if I left anything out and you need more clarity.
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