Selena Gomez revealed in 2017 that she’d received a kidney transplant from friend Francia Raísa
Selena Gomez is giving fans a look at her meaningful new tattoo.
On Friday, the 27-year-old singer released her first album in four years, Rare, as well as the music video for the title track. The lush, nature-themed video shows Gomez in a whimsical garden filled with butterflies and colorful plants.
Near the beginning of the video, Gomez raises her arms above her head, showing off a new tattoo on the back of her right arm. Though the tattoo isn’t fully visible, Gomez has previously said that it features the date of her 2017 kidney transplant.
The singer gave another look at the tattoo in an Instagram post of photos from the “Rare” music video shoot. A number “6” is visible on her arm in one of the photos, possibly indicating that the transplant occurred in June 2017, though the star has never confirmed the exact date.
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Gomez revealed she had gotten the new arm tattoo in an interview with Capital FM in December.
“I actually got the date of when I got my kidney transplant,” she said, gesturing towards her right arm. “And I did that with the girl that gave me her kidney.”
In September 2017, the “Lose You to Love Me” singer revealed that she had received a kidney transplant from her friend Francia Raísa after being open about her battle with lupus for several years.
Gomez shared a photo of the friends holding hands from their hospital beds as well as photos of her stomach following the surgery.
“There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raísa,” Gomez said. “She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed. I love you so much sis.”
“My kidneys were just done,” the musician explained in an interview on the Today show in October 2017. “That was it, and I didn’t want to ask a single person in my life. The thought of asking someone to do that was really difficult for me. She volunteered and did it. And let alone someone wanting to volunteer, it is incredibly difficult to find a match. The fact that she was a match, I mean that’s unbelievable. That’s not real.”
Gomez’s new album Rare comes after a long hiatus for the singer, who has been working hard to get to a healthier and happier place emotionally by focusing on her mental health with therapists for six years and seeking professional help at treatment facilities.
The album, which includes her first Billboard No. 1 song “Lose You to Love Me”, marks a new beginning for Gomez, who appears to be shedding her past with upbeat breakup and self-love anthems.
“Every song on the record has some sort of emotion or conflict or there’s something going on,” she told PEOPLE exclusively before the album dropped. “I related to everything on this record very, very clearly.”
Source: people.com
