Francia Raísa and Selena Gomez had extremely difficult times following their kidney transplant. The grown-ish star, 29, decided to donate one of her kidneys for her best friend, Gomez, 25, after learning that she was a match and the singer needed a transplant due to complications from her Lupus.
In a new interview with Self, Raísa revealed she asked her social worker for advice before the surgery. “It’s going to be hard, the recipient is going to glow and she’s going to recover a lot faster than the donor because she’s getting something she needs and you are losing something you don’t need to lose. It’s going to be hard,” she said.
“And it was hard … Selena and I both went through a depression,” the actress added.
Earlier this month, Raísa spoke with W Magazine about the recovery, revealing it was more difficult than she had expected and that there were post-surgery complications.
“Recovery was hard. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to drink anything. Selena did have a complication, too,” she told the publication. “A few hours after our surgery, I woke up and had a text from her that said, ‘I’m really scared.’ My kidney was very active, and when it turned I broke an artery. They had to take her into emergency surgery and get a vein from her leg and build a new artery to keep my kidney in place. She could have died.”
Gomez revealed in a September 2017 Instagram post that she had undergone the surgery, sharing a photo of herself and her best friend lying next to each other in the hospital. “there aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raísa She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me,” she wrote at the time. “I am incredibly blessed. I love you so much sis.”
