Selena Gomez has told fans that vaping nicotine changed her voice, and the first question back was not about her voice at all. It was why someone with her medical history had been vaping in the first place.
'It's changed my voice, so if you guys don't like listening to my voice, that's totally understandable,' she said in a video posted to her Instagram Stories on Sunday, 18 October. 'I don't mind. Just don't listen.' She said she had vaped heavily, that 'nicotine is so hard to quit', and that anyone thinking of starting should know 'it's just not worth it'.
She also said she had managed to stop. 'I stopped, and I just hope I can keep it up,' she said. For a singer who has spoken publicly about lupus for years and underwent a kidney transplant in 2017 after complications from the disease, the admission carried more weight than a confession about a bad habit.
'With All of Her Health Issues'
The dismay came quickly. 'I cannot believe with all of her health issues, she would vape,' read one of the most upvoted comments. 'How sad.'
Comment
by u/ivanashagwell from discussion
in popculturechat
Others were sharper. 'So it isn't lupus?' one asked. 'It's the very thing you aren't supposed to do after a kidney transplant.'
She Has Been Asked This Before
None of this is new to Gomez. Last October, a clip shared on a friend's Instagram Stories appeared to show her holding a vape during a wedding dress fitting. Fans argued that vaping was reckless for someone with an autoimmune disease, and some of the commentary turned nasty, dragging in the friend who donated her kidney. Gomez said nothing at the time.
She addressed her voice a few months later, during an Instagram Live on 16 December, but gave a vaguer answer. 'There's no excuse. I don't really care,' she said then. 'I think my point is, is that sometimes things happen.' She added only that her throat 'kind of swells inside sometimes'.
In the meantime, people online developed their own explanation, with lupus and the medication used to manage it emerging as leading theories. That explanation came under renewed scrutiny after Gomez's latest admission. 'I'm waiting to read the comments from the people who were adamant that her voice change was strictly from lupus and the meds to manage it,' one commenter wrote. Another agreed: 'Literally everyone said that so confidently. I'm glad she cleared it up.'
Some Doubt the Explanation
Not everyone accepted Gomez's explanation. 'I vape too and my voice ain't change,' one person wrote beneath a music site's post about the video, drawing hundreds of likes. Another was blunter: 'Vaping doesn't make you sound monotone but okay lol.'
Others described different experiences. One commenter called themselves a 'longtime vaper and massive regrettor', saying quitting had been insanely hard and that their vocal range had suffered as a result.
Addiction Is Not a Choice
The strongest pushback came from people who found the criticism too simplistic. 'I don't think it's that simple,' one person replied to the comment about Gomez's health issues. 'Yes, definitely sad, but nicotine is super addictive and it's not just a matter of willpower.'
Someone who said they worked as an X-ray technician made a similar point, noting that they saw lung cancer patients continuing to smoke during treatment. Their observation highlighted the difficulty of breaking an addictive habit, even when its risks are understood.
She Is Not Asking for Sympathy
Gomez asks for very little in the video. She does not mention her other conditions, ask anyone to go easy on her or frame the habit as anything but a mistake. She acknowledges it, says she has stopped and tells people who dislike the result that they can stop listening.
It is the same posture she took last December, when she said there was no excuse and that she did not really care. The difference is that she has now supplied an answer she withheld then, after months of speculation about her voice.
