Leave Selena Gomez alone. She dropped “Single Soon” in August — no, it is not about The Weeknd — and seems to be looking forward to finally releasing her next album, confirming “there’s not one sad song” on the record. She just wants to have fun, but everybody else keeps ruining it for her.
Gomez attended the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday night, September 12, where she accepted Best Afrobeats alongside Rema for their ubiquitous “Calm Down” collaboration. While sitting next to Rema in the crowd, Gomez scrunched up her face in apparent disapproval when Chris Brown was announced as a nominee for Best R&B. Cameras caught her reaction, and people on the internet did the rest.
“I will never be a meme again,” Gomez wrote on her since-expired Instagram Story. “I’d rather sit still than be dragged for being myself. Much love.”
Selena Gomez vows to “never be a meme again” after she appeared to react to Chris Brown being nominated at the #VMAs
pic.twitter.com/HDuGnAFVO1
— Complex (@Complex) September 13, 2023
This is the second time this month that Gomez has watched a candid reaction of hers become fodder for strangers. For as famous as she is, as long as she’s been famous, and as many times as people have taken something about her and ran with it, I imagine it never stops being an uncomfortable experience, to say the least.
On September 3, Gomez was one one of several celebrities present at BMO Stadium for Lionel Messi’s first-ever Major League Soccer game in Los Angeles since signing with Inter Miami in July. Messi had his shot saved — the rarest of sights — and Gomez’s mouth dropped to the floor.
Selena Gomez was all of us watching John McCarthy deny Messi!
https://t.co/A3a564uUSB pic.twitter.com/7likNsWPJD
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 4, 2023
Gomez played along and posted a screengrab of herself to her Instagram Story from the viral video, writing, “Mood.”