Kate Hackett
Apparently Selena Gomez said Taylor Swift is her only friend in the industry and, uh, her kidney donor was not thrilled.
Francia Raisa donated her kidney to her close friend, Selena, back in 2017. Six years earlier, Selena had been diagnosed with lupus, which is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks healthy parts of itself.
Before the transplant, she said her kidneys “were just done” because of organ damage.
Francia spoke with the Today Show after the surgery. She told them, “[Selena] goes: ‘I don’t know what to do, the [donor wait] list is seven to 10 years long,’ and it just vomited out of me. I was like: ‘Of course I’ll get tested.”
“I didn’t want to ask a single person in my life,” Selena revealed back at the time of the surgery. “The thought of asking somebody to do that was really difficult for me. She volunteered and did it.”
She also noted that it was “unbelievable” that they were a match.
“There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa,” Selena wrote at the time. “She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed. I love you so much sis.”
The next year, Francia shared about the experience, revealing that she had a hard time after the surgery.
“It’s harder as the donor because we are losing something our body didn’t need to lose, so trying to recover from that and she’s gaining something her body needed,” she said on Harry Connick Jr.’s show Harry. “So she’s up and at it immediately and I had a hard time.”
She continued, “I couldn’t get up without having someone help me. That was very humbling. I couldn’t take a shower by myself, I had to have someone help me because I couldn’t move.”
But she didn’t regret anything and said it brought her and Selena even closer.
“It was a big surgery. She felt bad about even having me do that because we are just friends. I am not her family or anything. Well, I am now. She has my blood,” Francia shared.
“She felt bad. We just wanted our families around and it was cool because now I have a big family. I lost my grandparents when I was younger… Her grandparents are my grandparents now and so I have this extension of a family and it’s been really amazing,” she said in 2018.
Recently, Selena’s new Apple TV+ documentary, My Mind and Me, came out and people were surprised by her comments about industry friendships.
“I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities,” Selena said in one scene. “My only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift].”
Francia was not mentioned at all.
She replied on a post by E! News on Instagram citing the Taylor/Selena friendship, saying only, “Instagram.”
She also quickly unfollowed Selena on social media.
Fans wondered if Selena meant the music industry; Francia is an actor and not part of the music industry.
“Selena gomez said that her only friend in music industry is taylor swift. francia raisa isn’t in music industry apparently so why get mad like that? selena said many times that she sees francia as her sister,” one person said.
But when someone made a TikTok about the apparent slight, Selena commented, “Sorry I didn’t mention every person I know.”
This fueled some SERIOUS backlash. “‘Every person I know’ um how about the ONE person who gave you part of her literal body? Think that name might be on the tip of your tongue?” wrote one person on Reddit.
It seems there have been rumors swirling around the pair’s disconnect for a while; it began when doctors told Selena about the match before telling Francia, then continued as Francia disapproved of Selena drinking after the donation. Selena, meanwhile, is said to feel tired of feeling in debt to her friend.
Who knows where they stand now.
