Selena Gomez Says She Named Her New Kidney After Fred Armisen
Selena Gomez goes everywhere with Fred Armisen, literally.
The Disney alum underwent a kidney transplant in 2017. In recent times, she shared that she named her new organ “Fred” in her tribute to the Saturday Night Live star.
“I named it after Fred Armisen because I love Portlandia,” Gomez said in an interview with Rolling Stone. (Portlandia is Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s sketch comedy series. “I’ve never met him. But I’m secretly hoping he finds that out just because I want him to be like, ‘That’s weird.'”
When EW asked Armisen’s comment on the tribute, he did not immediately respond.
After being diagnosed with lupus in 2015, the actress revealed she had a kidney transplant. This procedure occurs as a result of complications from the disease.
Recovery was not easy either. Francia Raisa, a fellow actress, donated the kidney. After surgery, the organ kicked in on its own, damaging one of Ms. Gomez’s arteries.
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Selena on Her Condition
Then the “Lose You to Love Me” singer underwent another six-hour surgery to cure the frightening situation.
“They had to take her into emergency surgery and get the vein from her leg and build a new artery to keep my kidney in place,” Raisa said in an interview with W Magazine over the health concern in 2018.
“She could have died.”
Gomez said a donated kidney usually lasts around 30 years.
“Which is fine,” she shared with Rolling Stone. “I might like, ‘Peace out,’ anyway.”
But the Disney alum said she understands that the difficulty she’s experienced so far in life made her stronger.
“I just constantly remind myself that there’s a reason I’m here,” she stated. “It sounds really cheesy when I say it sometimes. But I truly don’t know how else I’d be here, simply based on the medical stuff and balances in my head and conversations I’d had with myself [that were] really dark.”
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Mental Health Journey
Gomez recently released a documentary in honor of World Mental Health Day. The doc is titled Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me and chronicles her personal journey.
“Just be who you are, Selena,” Selena says at the film’s start. “No one cares about what you’re doing. It’s about who I am, being okay with where I am. I am grateful to be alive.”
The 30-year-old singer-songwriter has been open about her mental health challenges. In 2020, she revealed that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
For most of her life, Selena has been in the limelight. That became a primary reason behind her mental health issues growing up.
“My whole life since I was a kid, I’ve been working,” she says in tears on a clip of My Mind & Me. “I don’t want to be, like, super famous. But I do know that if I’m here, I have to use that for good.”
As everyone may know, Selena began her career in the children’s television series Barney & Friends. Then, she earned the spotlight by appearing in Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place as Alex Russo.
Furthermore, she has established a career in the music industry. She released some of the most highly-esteemed songs in the industry.