Long before Selena Gomez became a household name, she was the daughter of Mandy Teefey (née Cornett) and Ricardo Gomez.
At the age of 16, Teefey and Ricardo welcomed their baby girl, named for late singer Selena Quintanilla. Five years later, the couple separated.
“I blamed my mom a lot [for the divorce] because I wanted a family so bad,” the Only Murders in the Building star recalled during a June 2011 E! Entertainment special about her life. “I wanted to have my mom and dad together. I remember just being angry with my mom. I still feel really bad about that.”
She added: “Having me at sixteen had to have been a big responsibility. My mom gave up everything for me and had, like, three jobs. She supported me, sacrificed her life for me.”
While the “Bad Liar” songstress has since come to understand how her mom worked tirelessly to support their family of two, Selena initially struggled to cope with the divorce. “She would vent and yell at me,” Teefey — who remarried Brian Teefey in 2006 — recalled during the TV special. “All I could do is just say, ‘I’m sorry, but you’ll understand someday.’”
As Selena navigated a career in the acting industry, first landing the role of Gianna on Barney & Friends before becoming a household name on the Disney Channel, her mom was her No. 1 cheerleader.
“[I remember when] she was 6 or 7. I thought I wanted to be an actor. She went to one of my rehearsals with me and sat through the whole thing, not moving,” Mandy, a former actress herself, said during a March 2017 interview with The New York Times. “On the way home, she was quiet, and then she goes, ‘You know, Mom, that might be funnier if you did it this way.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, no. She’s going to be an actor.’”
She added: “I’m surprised she actually had friends. She used to make the kids in the neighborhood do casting calls and try to direct them.”
While the mother-daughter duo remained tight as Selena pursued her Hollywood dreams, things hit a snag when the Rare Beauty founder entered into an on-and-off relationship with Justin Bieber.
“There is a lot of uncertainty about him as far as Selena’s family is concerned,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in December 2017, noting Mandy had trust issues when it comes to the “Baby” crooner after the former couple’s rocky history. “[Justin] is really hoping that they give him another chance, but he knows that it is going to take some time.”
The Spring Breakers star’s romance with the Canada native eventually fizzled for good by 2018, with Bieber moving on with Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin). Selena, for her part, was able to get her relationship with Mandy back on track following the breakup. The mother-daughter pair even founded Wondermind, a multimedia platform designed to offer mental health support, together in April 2022 alongside Daniella Pierson.
“We hope to be the one-stop shop for all aspects of mental fitness. We have taken an unexpected and innovative chance on the way people can understand and participate in a creative foundation to show anyone that a shift is possible,” Mandy said in a statement at the time. “Far from medical or preachy, we’ve struck a balance between education, media and self-reflection that truly inspires growth.”
Scroll below for Selena’s ups and downs with her mother:
