Selena Gomez Is in Full Control of Her Life

Selena Gomez doesn’t like birthdays. When we talk, her 28th is only days away. “I’m not really good with birthdays,” she says, waving her hand as if to shoo them away. Selena (with all due respect to her and the Allure copy desk, let’s just call her by her first name here) has left the party-planning to a handful of friends she’s been seeing during the pandemic. “I don’t know, it just feels like maybe something like 30 should be celebrated. Turning 28 is weird,” she says. In Selena’s defense, nothing about this year feels celebratory for anyone.
There is a paradoxical quality to interviews these days. They happen at a distance, of course, yet there is an artificial intimacy. We’re sitting in our respective bedrooms. Selena’s look is unembellished. She’s wearing a long-sleeve, loose-fitting cream tunic so simple and elegant that it would look equally at home on a Celine runway and in a Renaissance painting.
The rest of her appearance is also timeless: She has pulled her hair back into a ponytail gathered at the crown of her head. Even through the blurry haze of Zoom video, it’s apparent why she’s caught the eye of casting agents since she was knee-high. Her full lashes and arching brows contrast strikingly with the rest of her facial features, which read as cherubic — until she flashes a wide, toothy grin that disarms you like a sudden bloom.