Selena Gomez is stripped down and topless in the revealing artwork for her upcoming album, Revival, but she admitted to Ryan Seacrest in a radio interview on Friday, Sept. 11, that there was a time not so long ago when she let the fat-shamers get to her.
"I feel very empowered and confident in where I am," she said on On Air with Ryan Seacrest. "I think it took me a long while to get there because the past year was so interesting because I've never been body-shamed before. I dealt with a whole other set of issues that was really interesting."
"I did gain weight, but I don’t care," the "Love You Like a Love Song" singer, 23, said, but she also admitted that the online criticism got to her "a little bit" but "sometimes you can't help" reading the comments.
"You know what's interesting? I posted this photo on Instagram and I was like, 'There’s more to love and I’m happy with myself.' The reason why I did that was because I didn't want them to win," Gomez said. "Because then the next day, it wasn't about how I gained weight, it was about how I embraced it. And that’s just kind of my approach."
Justin Bieber's ex also talked about her recent single "Good for You," explaining that while on the surface the song is about a woman who wants to look good for her man, the lyrics have a deeper meaning about female liberation.
"There's nothing wrong with a woman being comfortable, confident," she said. "I love feeling like I'm in love and I want to look good for someone, but at the same time there's no guy in my video. I'm saying I am a diamond. I like the way that women feel when they're in that state."
Gomez's second studio album, Revival, drops Oct. 9.
