Updated: March 19, 2018
A fresh, chin-length bob isn’t the only thing Selena Gomez is confidently showing off. Recently photographed private yachting off the coast of Australia, Gomez was beaming in a pair of bold silver hoops and a coral bikini that revealed a scar from the emergency follow-up procedure she required after her kidney transplant last year. (View the images here.) Though the singer openly shared a photo of her abdominal scar on Instagram, she had yet to show the second scar, this time on her inner thigh and with a much scarier backstory.
Both she and her kidney-donor best friend Francia Raisa have since been vocal about the aftermath, sharing that once Gomez woke up from the original transplant surgery, she began hyperventilating and found out her new kidney was turning around in her body and had broken an artery in the process. “They had to take her into emergency surgery and get a vein from her leg and build a new artery to keep my kidney in place,” Raisa told W. “She could have died.”
Thankfully, the singer appeared full of life in the photos (and with a smoking hot bod, too).
Originally published: September 14, 2017
Like her celebrity counterparts, Selena Gomez’s Instagram feed is usually filled with glossy magazine covers and the latest fashion campaigns she’s signed, but this morning’s post was a bit different. Instead of couture, the singer was wearing a hospital gown, and a bare, makeup-free face replaced a glamorous, camera-ready look. Gomez’s raw, emotional post included a caption explaining that, due to some serious lupus complications, she received a kidney transplant a few months ago, and has since been recovering.
“I’m very aware some of my fans had noticed I was laying low for part of the summer and questioning why I wasn’t promoting my new music, which I was extremely proud of,” she captioned the Instagram post. “So I found out I needed to get a kidney transplant due to my Lupus and was recovering. It was what I needed to do for my overall health.”
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Since being diagnosed in 2014, Gomez has been very public about her battle with lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack its own tissues and organs (such as the kidney), and has been undergoing chemotherapy to treat it in 2015. A year later, the singer revealed that she had also been suffering from severe anxiety, panic attacks and depression, which are all common side effects of lupus.
“I want to publicly thank my family and incredible team of doctors for everything they have done for me prior to and post-surgery,” she continued. “And finally, there aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa. She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed.” Gomez shared a photo of the friends holding hands in their hospital beds, along with two photos of her stomach and scar following the surgery.
Since being shared this morning, the post has garnered over five million likes and more than 120,000 comments. “Lupus continues to be very misunderstood but progress is being made,” Gomez said hopefully, including a link to the Lupus Research Alliance website for those who would like to learn more.
