Selena Gomez Rumored To Have Cancer: Does She?

There have been rumors that Selena Gomez has cancer due to the fact that she spoke about going through chemotherapy. The rumors are not true, but the truth is not much better.

Selena has Lupus.

Gomez is not alone either — other celebrities (like Nick Cannon and Toni Braxton) have lupus, as well. It may seem odd that some of the younger celebrities are fighting such a disease, but according to an interview ET Online had with the medical director of the Lupus Foundation of America, young people are affected by Lupus more often than older people. Selena Gomez found out she had Lupus in 2011, but decided not to tell anyone about her disease.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease. The antibodies that should be protecting Selena Gomez’s health are instead fighting her own body and damaging her tissues and organs. This disease is a serious health problem, and causes many symptoms including rashes, fatigue, fevers, arthritis, body aches, and low white blood cell counts. While lupus is a serious condition, the chemotherapy Selena went through is not as powerful as chemo used to treat cancer. Lupus chemotherapy is normally a lower dosage, and while it can still cause the same symptoms as cancer chemo, it is not as severe. While cancer patients may lose all their hair due to chemo, Lupus patients only lose some. Selena experienced the effects of chemo to an extent, which is probably why Gomez took a break from her music career in 2013. Selena told Billboard that lupus is a complex, and poorly understood, condition that causes the body to mistakenly detect its own tissue as a foreign invader and attack itself. Many people began to think that lupus was a type of cancer because Selena went through chemotherapy, but it has no correlation with cancer and, while it is a serious disease, lupus is not as deadly as cancer. People with lupus live normal lives with the right treatment.

Selena Gomez decided to go through chemotherapy to fight lupus, as there is no cure for this condition. Selena is on a strict diet and routine, along with medication to help keep the disease under control. In 2014, Gomez went to a rehab center that specialized in addiction, causing the press to have a field day as they suspected she had an addiction to alcohol or pills. When asked about why she was going before she left, Selena Gomez told the press she needed time to herself. This only added fuel to the fire regarding the rumors that were flying at the time. While she wanted to correct the rumors, she was not ready to talk about her disease while she was in rehab. When Selena came out about the disease, she explained that she had gone through chemo and she could have had a stroke if she did not take a break from the publicity. While in rehab, Selena says she heard a lot of cruel rumors about herself — especially because she canceled a piece of her tour to be able to go to rehab. She was very angry and upset because even though she is so nice to people, the public is so vile to her.

Even though she is going through a difficult time, Selena Gomez has just published a new album, called Revival. She says the entire album is about her and has nothing to do with the break up between her and Justin Bieber. Selena says she is very happy with what he has done with his music, and that she hopes the best for him.

[Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Images]