Selena Gomez receives award for mental health advocacy

11/14/22 by Tiffany Wang

The Ruderman Family Foundation awarded Selena Gomez their annual Morton E. Ruderman Award for her mental health advocacy work. Gomez is open about her own struggles with mental health and advocates for the importance of mental health awareness with her platform.

In 2022, Gomez announced to the public that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after
taking a break in 2016 due to panic attacks and depression.

“Mental health impacts all of us, and we each have a role to play in ensuring that everyone —
regardless of their background — has access to mental health services. I hope by sharing my own
story and using my platform, we can empower each other and more young people to address
mental health,” Gomez said.

Gomez founded the Rare Impact Fund dedicated to mental health organizations, shortly before
launching her cosmetic line Rare Beauty. The fund has raised $1.7 million for more than
dozen mental health organizations so far.

“Selena Gomez powerfully embodies our foundation’s mission in the mental health arena – a
mission which continues to take on greater importance amid today’s unprecedented health crisis
for teens, young adults, and the entire population,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the
Ruderman Family Foundation.

Gomez said that she hopes to empower more people by sharing her story. A new documentary,
“Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me” premiered earlier this month on AppleTV+. In the
documentary, Gomez dives deeper into her mental health struggles and a side of her she’s been reluctant to show the public before.

“Mental health is personal for me. Figuring out how to manage my mental health hasn’t always
been easy, but it’s something I am constantly working on, and I hope I can help others work on
it, too,” said Gomez.