Selena Gomez reflects on 'really hard season' post Justin Bieber split

Selena Gomez revealed the real reason she disappeared from the face of social media for sometime a few years ago.

The Rare Beauty mogul took an extended break from social media soon after she ended her on-again, off-again relationship with Justin Bieber in 2018, followed by her diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

"I had just gotten my heart broken. I didn't need to see what everyone was doing," explained Gomez in an interview with Fast Company.

The pop star shared she also struggled with body image issues during that time. "Then there were those moments of not feeling positive about how I looked because of what I'd see on Instagram. Wow, I wish my body looked like that."

Besides being scary, Gomez revealed getting her diagnosis was relieving in a sense that it offered her an explanation behind her thoughts and feelings at the time.

"I went through a really hard season. It was my highs and my lows, and I didn't know what to do, so I couldn’t control it. I would want to cancel things. It was just a tormented feeling.”

She announced her diagnosis with the mental health disorder for the first time in a conversation with Miley Cyrus in 2020.

The Lose You to Love Me singer explained she made the choice to encourage resonance among her followers suffering from the same condition, as well as take a step toward destigmatizing it.

"I wanted there to be a conversation started," she shared. "I wasn't ashamed, and I wanted it to lead to something healing."