Selena Gomez reveals the roughest stage in her career: ‘At my wits' end'
Despite rising to fame portraying Alex Russo on Disney Channel's 'Wizards of Waverly Place' in 2007, Selena Gomez wasn't sure the show would happen.
At the time, the young star, now 33, was making her rounds at Disney, but nothing was getting greenlit.
'I was on three pilots for the Disney Channel,' Gomez shared while on the 'Therapuss With Jake Shane' podcast on Wednesday.
'One was the spinoff of 'Lizzie McGuire,' one was the spinoff of 'The Suite Life of Zach and Cody,' and the last one was 'Wizards.' So all of them didn't get picked up, and I was just kind of at my wits' end, but not in a bad way. I just thought, 'Okay, well, this isn't going to work out.''
10 Selena Gomez opens up about her time on Disney Channel.
Jake Shane/YouTube
'Wizards' ended up being the one pilot to land.
''Wizards' got picked up, and my whole life changed after that,' Gomez recalled. 'It was an immediate feeling of, 'Oh, I achieved my dream' at that point in time.'
The sitcom ran for four seasons until 2012. Viewers watched the dynamic between Alex and her brothers Justin (David Henrie) and Max (Jake T. Austin), along with their parents Jerry (David DeLuise) and Theresa (Maria Canals-Barrera), play out.
10 Selena Gomez on 'Therapuss with Jake Shane.'
Jake Shane/YouTube
10 Selena Gomez as Alex Russo on 'Wizards of Waverly Place.'
©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
The Russo family came from a long line of wizards, and the kids had to learn how to use their powers before they lost them — all while balancing being teens.
The pilot took off when Gomez was just 15. However, she previously appeared on 'Barney & Friends' from 2002 to 2004.
'I was such a huge fan of the channel. I was a huge fan of what they did for our generation, and it was an honor,' she gushed. 'I wear it proudly. I definitely am not ashamed of being part of the Disney high school.'
In 2024, Disney launched the show's reboot 'Wizards Beyond Waverly Place,' where Gomez reprised her character for two episodes.
The actress also serves as an executive producer on the show. Season 2 returns next month.
10 David Henrie stars as 'Justin,' Selena Gomez as 'Alex' and Jake T. Austin as 'Max' in 'Wizards of Waverly Place.'
©2007 DISNEY CHANNEL
10 Selena Gomez and David Henrie on 'Wizards.'
©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
10 Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Camryn Manheim on 'Hannah Montana.'
©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
Along with going back to her roots, Gomez also stars on Hulu's 'Only Murders in the Building' with Steve Martin and Martin Short.
The trio will return for their fifth season starting on September 9.
Gomez detailed just how amazing it has been to star in the murder mystery series with two comedic legends.
'Sometimes it's just impossible to keep a straight face for me,' she admitted to Numero Magazine in 2024. 'They are much better at it than me. I love comedy and I have so much fun on set. And I think it is mainly thanks to the writing and to the scriptwriters.'
The show quickly became a fan-favorite. Gomez accepted their first SAG Award win for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series this past winter.
10 Dylan Sprouse, Cole Sprouse on 'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.'
©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
10 'Lizzie McGuire' cast Hallie Todd, Jake Thomas, Robert Carradine and Hilary Duff.
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
'Wait, we never win,' she began in her speech. 'This is so weird. OK, well, Marty and Steve aren't here. You know, they don't really care. But I just—I don't know what to say.'
Gomez added, 'Oh, and thank you to Marty and Steve. They raised me.'
The star also stepped into the entrepreneurial space, founding her beauty brand Rare Beauty in 2020.
Additionally, she recently dropped her fourth studio album, 'I Said I Love You First,' in collaboration with her fiancé, Benny Blanco.
The couple got engaged at the end of last year after dating for a year. In March, Blanco, 37, revealed that the surprise engagement almost didn't go as planned.
'It was the sickest surprise that she had no idea about and it couldn't have come at a better time because I was starting to f–k up. The thing that makes me so crazy is, you're getting engaged, and right before, they're like, 'Show me how good of a liar you are. Sneak around and try to do this perfect thing without me knowing.' At the end, she was starting to get upset because she was like, 'Why aren't you coming home tonight?' And I was like, 'Oh, I'm just at my friends,'' the producer said during a sit down with Interview Magazine in February. 'I almost did it early. But I nailed it, I think.
10 Selena Gomez performs in 2013.
Getty Images
10 Martin Short, Steve Martin, Selena Gomez in 'Only Murders in the Building.'
©Hulu/Courtesy Everett Collection
Meanwhile, Gomez chimed in about what it was like to work together in the studio.
'The fact that he listened to me,' the Rare Beauty founder told the outlet about what she loved most about the process.
'Sometimes it's difficult for me to speak up. Most of my anxiety right now is wanting him to speak because I feel like he's more talented than I am in this field. It's like working with a great filmmaker,' she went on. 'Whether we were together or not, I think he still would've listened to everything that I had to say, and he was able to almost transcribe it into music, into what the feeling of what I was talking about should be.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
a few seconds ago
- USA Today
The role reversal in caring for parents is 'wild.' Taylor Swift knows it all too well.
When Taylor Swift's father, Scott Swift, underwent a quintuple bypass surgery this summer, he said what many dads in his situation might say to their kids: "You guys are busy... don't come." But the pop star knew better. She was there with her mom and brother when her dad woke up from his procedure, and stayed with him as he recovered. "We just all moved in with him for the whole summer, pretty much," Swift said, adding that he needed help walking around. "He was, like, the loveliest patient ever. He just kept saying, 'thank you' over and over again." Swift opened up about her father's surgery, and her role as one of his caregivers, during her appearance on her boyfriend Travis Kelce's podcast, "New Heights," which he co-hosts with his brother Jason Kelce. During the interview, which has garnered more than 15 million views on YouTube since it streamed on Aug. 13, Swift also talked about her life during the Eras Tour, falling for Travis Kelce, her approach to social media, her new sourdough making obsession and she announced her next album, "The Life of a Showgirl." Swift said she, her brother Austin Swift and her mother Andrea Swift took shifts caring for her dad as he recovered from surgery, and said he's now "doing incredibly well." Sharing details about her dad's health was a rare moment for Swift, who tends to not discuss her family's personal lives. Swift's caregiving story is also significant in the care world, where advocates are always trying to spread awareness about the struggles of caregivers, who now make up nearly 25% of the American adult population, according to a recent report from the AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving. Other celebrities have recently come forward to tell their own caregiving stories, including Academy Award-nominated actor Bradley Cooper and Emmy Award-winning actress Uzo Aduba. "It is a reminder that everyone has a care concern," said Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. "Everyone wants their mom or their dad, their spouse, their child, their family member to be cared for. Having high profile people who presumably have access to resources talk about their struggles also is a reminder that these issues are hard for everyone." Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, AARP's CEO, said the organization hears every day from family caregivers who are managing medications, coordinating appointments, bathing loved ones, navigating insurance claims and "doing it all while working, raising children, and trying to stay afloat financially and emotionally." "Taylor Swift's openness about caring for her father shines a light on what 63 million Americans are experiencing right now," Minter-Jordan said. "Perhaps most heartbreaking, nearly a quarter of caregivers say they feel completely alone. When public figures like Taylor share their caregiving journey, it helps break that isolation, validates caregivers' experiences, and underscores why we must build systems that see them, value them, and support them.' 'Parent-child reversal' Swift said her father's five heart blockages were detected in a resting stress test, not in his yearly EKG. "He's been telling all his friends, 'You need to get the stress test,'" Swift said. "Because that's what's actually preventative." Once the blockages were found, Swift said, "it all happened really quick." "It was kind of wild, because it was, like... it was very parent-child reversal," Swift said. She recalled fighting with her parents as a teenager when she would sneak her cell phone into her room at night to talk to friends. When her dad was recovering, she said, Swift and her brother had to monitor their dad's cell phone use. "I'm having these moments where I'm like, this dude built play sets and swing sets and cribs for me. I'm building his shower chair and his walker and his bed," she said. "It's just surreal, man." Swift mentioned her mother recently got a new knee, too, and "is doing great." "This was just, like, the summer of my parental upgrades," Swift joked. "We're just upgrading the parents, making sure that they live to be at least 186 years old. Because they're two of my best friends." Caring for her parents, Swift said, was "actually one of the most special things that's ever happened to me." "Spending all that time with them this summer," Swift said. "You have those long talks that you don't have when it's, like, a small, concentrated period of time." Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Reach Madeline at memitchell@ and @maddiemitch_ on X.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Taylor Swift Just Shattered This Record Trump Previously Held, And It Only Took Her 1 Hour To Do So
We're sure there will be bad blood. Taylor Swift has broken a record previously held by President Donald Trump. Related: On Wednesday, the Grammy winner appeared on the New Heights podcast hand-in-hand with her boyfriend and co-host Travis Kelce, as his older brother, Jason Kelce, interviewed Swift for a little over two hours. The Daily Beast reports that 1.3 million viewers tuned to watch the podcast episode on YouTube within the first hour that it was online. The outlet notes that reps for the 'Shake It Off' singer confirmed the number. Related: The figure trumps the record previously held by Trump. His appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience in Oct. 2024 saw 800,000 people tune in within the first hour, according to CNN data analyst Harry Enten. CNN host Kate Bolduan also noted Wednesday the episode is 'already on track to become one of the most watched podcasts of all time.' Related: Trump will likely be pretty peeved about Swift mopping him up. The president expressed hostility towards the 'Blank Space' singer after she publicly endorsed Kamala Harris in the build-up to the 2024 presidential election. 'I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,' he wrote in all caps on his Truth Social platform at the time. @Phil_Lewis_/X/@realDonaldTrump/TruthSocial / Via In May, the president proved he was no Swiftie yet again when he published another post on Truth Social that read: 'Has anyone noticed that, since I said 'I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,' she's no longer 'HOT?'' Related: We suppose that at least 1.3 million people think otherwise. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in Celebrity: Also in Celebrity: Also in Celebrity: Solve the daily Crossword
Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Snake-wrangling YouTuber hunts down 60 invasive pythons for Florida competition
On an island in the middle of the Florida Everglades, Taylor Stanberry — mostly nocturnal in the summer catching Burmese pythons — uncovered a wriggling nest of 30 baby pythons. The discovery helped the Naples resident land first place in the 2025 Florida Python Challenge, which drew 934 hunters competing to make a dent in the state's invasive Burmese python population, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced Aug. 13. 'I've been catching pythons for 11 years, so it kind of gets to be just like another day in the office,' Stanberry told McClatchy News on Aug. 15. 'But it is always fun actually finding fresh babies along with the eggs, because that is such a hard thing to do.' The competitors estimated that the timing of this year's contest, which ran July 11 to 20, and the discovery of the nests helped bolster the removal numbers. Last year, the first place winner caught 20 pythons during the contest, which was held nearly a month later than this year's, McClatchy News reported last September. This year's competitors hauled in a record 294 snakes, with 40% of those coming from two women alone. Stanberry is one and Donna Kalil is the other, winning the most pythons prize in the professional category with 56 snakes, beating her 19 pythons from last year. 'Being the first female ultimate grand prize winner is a huge honor, because I know the other women that competed are awesome, like Donna won first place in a professional category,' Stanberry said. Stanberry and her husband have a large following on YouTube and social media, where they showcase their encounters with wildlife in Florida and around the world, mostly focusing on snakes. They also run a wildlife sanctuary with over 150 venomous snakes, and relocate venomous snakes in southwest Florida, Stanberry said. 'Me and my husband especially, we try to work really hard on saving wildlife and educating people on wildlife. So finally getting some recognition on the hard work that we've been doing means a lot,' said Stanberry, who took home a $10,000 prize for first place. Stanberry and her husband make educational videos about snakes to help reduce the creatures' bad reputation. Their YouTube channel has nearly 230,000 subscribers. In one YouTube video, Stanberry holds a venomous coral snake, explaining the differences between the species and other similar-looking snakes. In another video, she pulls a rattlesnake out of a pool with a snake hook. 'So it's really about just educating people that snakes really aren't bad,' she said. 'That's one thing I hate about the hunting of the pythons, in a sense, that everyone's just like, 'yeah, kill the snakes.' I'm like, 'No, it's not about killing snakes. It's about saving the other snakes.'' Burmese pythons, one of the largest snake species in the world, currently run unchecked in the Everglades with few natural predators, FWC biologists say. Pythons aren't picky about what they eat either, feasting on 'mammals, birds, reptiles and protected species such as the federally designated threatened wood stork and the federally-designated endangered Key Largo woodrat,' according to the FWC. 'Burmese pythons can consume meals equivalent to 100% their body mass.' Stanberry's desire to help native wildlife drives her to even become partly nocturnal during the summer months, when python hunting is only possible at night. Stanberry and her husband, and sometimes friends who like to come along, will brave the heat and bugs and hike out into the swamp, drive out to trails in a vehicle, take electric bikes or motor around in a johnboat looking for the invasive species. When Stanberry goes out looking for pythons, she said she also enjoys seeing other native wildlife like alligators, owls and snakes. 'So then that really motivates you, especially when you're in a rural area and you see bobcats and you know, they're the perfect python meal size,' she said. 'So it's like, OK, we gotta capture the pythons so we can continue to see all of this wildlife.' Other winners of this year's tournament include Michael Marousky, who took home the longest python prize with a 15-foot, 11-inch catch. Others caught pythons measuring 9 feet and 11 feet. 'I just want people to hunt pythons for the right reason,' Stanberry said. 'Don't do it just because it's fun to catch a big snake and kill it, you know, because that's not why I do it. It's really just about saving native wildlife and helping lower the python population.'
