SELENA GOMEZ: in PURSUIT of HAPPINESS

SSELENA GOMEZ HASN’T PULLED A GONE GIRL. Not exactly. But in the past few months, the most-followed person on Instagram (14O million and counting) has definitely disappeared from the Tabloid Industrial Complex. In January, Gomez quietly left LA and moved to an undisclosed location, where she and Raquelle, a friend from Hillsong Church (the A-list-congregation magnet that also includes Justin Bieber), are playing house. ‘It’s been such a release. LA’s just gotten really claustrophobic for me. In LA, I can’t do any of the things I do here. It’s impossible,’ she says.

We’re sitting in a quiet coffee shop, and Gomez, dressed in a denim jumpsuit, her hair pulled up behind a linen headscarf, opens a plastic container of pasta salad. ‘I’m not saying I feel the best I’ve ever felt,’ she says. ‘It’s me saying, I’m exactly where I am. And I’m so happy I’m in this place. It’s a lot of selfdiscovery. From [age] 2O to 26? Oh my gosh. I feel like a totally different person.’

After selling her Calabasas estate — $3.3 million, to French Montana, of all people — she has now also put her Studio City bungalow on the market for $2.8 million. (Her Texas mansion, one of the most expensive homes in Fort Worth, is also for sale at $3 million.) ‘I think everything in my life is being majorly downsized, in a very good way,’ she continues. ‘I’m going back to simplicity. That’s always who I’ve been. For a while, I think I did certain things because I thought I had to. Like, one of my friends looked at me one day — we were at lunch, and I think I purchased something, and she kind of looked at me and said, “Do you feel adequate enough now?”’

That’s pretty harsh, I say. ‘No, it’s the truth!’ she says. ‘I’m not a materialistic person. My friends wouldn’t judge me on that anyway. I like getting massages, I love getting nice things… It’s just, is it connected to my worth? You can buy a nice thing to feel good. But is that my worth?’

These are heady questions. And it hints at where Gomez is these days. Because the thing is, she’s changed more than her address this year. She’s a singer, actress, producer and fashion designer — and now she’s added a new role to her multi-hyphenate CV: she’s an intern. Yes, really.

Earlier today, we met at a branch of A21, the global anti-humantrafficking nonprofit where Gomez has been interning. The offices of A21 (there are 14 worldwide) have no signage, and the website doesn’t list the addresses. It’s a safety precaution, the organisation’s global volunteer coordinator, Laura Staph, tells me. But Staph’s invited me inside the windowed, open-plan space, where dozens of employees sit in front of computers — an army in stylish separates. A sign hangs beside the door, in gold letters, and it reads, ‘propel women’.

Of her reluctance to talk openly about her work here before now, Gomez says, ‘I wasn’t going to immediately start discussing it. It’s out of my comfort zone. I needed to be fully immersed in it.’ She knows what you’re thinking. ‘What a great thing another celebrity is doing…’ she says with a smile. ‘That’s not why I want to talk about it. I can’t be silent about this.’

Gomez began volunteering here in March, at the invitation of founder Christine Caine, also a member of the Hillsong Church, who suggested Gomez visited the office on the hunch that she might be inspired by the work they were doing. A21 recently worked on a multi-platform campaign, Can You See Me?, to raise awareness of slavery. In 2O17, A21 received the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice from the Harmony Foundation in Mumbai, India, for its humanitarian work during the refugee crisis. (Past recipients of the award include Malala and the Dalai Lama.) On one occasion in Greece, 77 refugees who’d been kidnapped and held for ransom were rescued in a police raid, thanks to a tip to A21’s resource line. Calls to the company’s hotline are up 65% since 2O16.

What Gomez learned in that first visit shocked her. ‘The idea of human trafficking to me is, essentially… I’m flabbergasted.’ Gomez rattles off statistics and horror stories of women being forced into sexual slavery until their organs fail, of places in Thailand where young children are sold on restaurant-style menus.

The invitation came at just the right moment. Earlier this year, Gomez tells me, she sat down with some ‘amazing women that were very close in my life. It was a rough moment. And I just had all of them there, encouraging me, and it was one of those moments that you imagine when you’re a young girl and you go talk to your aunts and your mum and you’re like, this is what’s going on.’ She had nearly finished work on her next album (which could appear as early as this autumn). ‘I had been working for so long, and I don’t like just taking things in my life. I just wanted to serve.’ Shortly after that heart-to-heart, Gomez was sitting in a three-day orientation at A21. I wonder if the staff there ever doubted her commitment. Gomez shouts, ‘Maybe!’ and her supervisor lets out a big laugh.

Gomez started working five days a week (pending studio commitments and, say, meetings with Puma in Germany). She got an email address from the nonprofit and a security card, like any other intern.

I ask her if it’s hard to leave such heavy work at the end of the day. She doesn’t hesitate. ‘Coming in here feels so hopeful. They just want justice. Everyone here has such a sweet energy. But you get them fired up — it’s a totally different story. That energy is contagious.’

While her security guard drives us to the coffee shop, I find myself thinking about the first time Gomez and I met — three years ago, in her first major cover story for ELLE, when this second act was still largely hypothetical. It was 2O15, and she’d recently split from her mother, who’d been managing her career, and she’d left her record label and signed with Interscope. She was hard at work on her album Revival, which she’d hoped would help shed her Disney image. During a hike in Calabasas, she’d told me how she’d convinced her record label to send her and her songwriters to Mexico, for inspiration. I remind her of that

“EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE

is BEING DOWNSIZED, IN A GOOD

WAY. I’m GOING BACK TO SIMPLICITY”