Selena Gomez honoured for mental health advocacy work

Pop star and actor Selena Gomez has been honoured for her work on mental health.

In 2016, Gomez took a break to deal with anxiety, panic attacks and depression stemming from her battle with lupus. Four years later, she revealed she’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

On Monday, the Boston-based Ruderman Family Foundation honoured the 30-year-old with its annual Morton E Ruderman Award in Inclusion for “drawing inspiration from her personal journey” to help others worldwide get access to counselling and other services.

“I hope by sharing my own story and using my platform, we can empower each other and more young people to address mental health,” Gomez said in a statement.

Texas-born Gomez said she strives to use her status as a public figure to share her own story in a way that empowers others.

A new documentary that explores her struggles, Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, premiered earlier this month on AppleTV+.

“Mental health is personal for me. Figuring out how to manage my mental health hasn’t always been easy, but it’s something I am constantly working on, and I hope I can help others work on it, too,” she said.

In 2020, the Wizards Of Waverly Place actor started the Rare Impact Fund shortly before launching her Rare Beauty line of cosmetics, pledging to donate 1% of all sales to the fund to help expand mental health services and education for young people.

So far, the fund has distributed 1.7 million dollars (£1.45 million) to nearly 20 mental health organisations.

“Selena Gomez powerfully embodies our foundation’s mission in the mental health arena — a mission which continues to take on greater importance amid today’s unprecedented mental health crisis for teens, young adults and the entire population,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation.

The award, now in its ninth year, is named after Morton E Ruderman, a founder of the Ruderman Family Foundation.

Past recipients include NBA All-Star Kevin Love, Academy Award-nominated actor Taraji P Henson, filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Olympian Michael Phelps, Oscar-winning actor Marlee Matlin, and former US senator and Americans with Disability Act architect Tom Harkin.