Selena Gomez Shares the Lesson She ‘Had to Learn’ During Her 5 Years Being Single

Selena Gomez and her fiancé, Benny Blanco, shared a lot about their relationship during their On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast appearance, including how Blanco didn’t think Gomez liked him at first as well as their plans to have kids someday. (Regarding having a big family, Gomez said, “I don’t know what will happen, obviously, but I love children....They’re just so sweet, so, absolutely, when that day comes, I’m so excited for it.”)

But Gomez also spoke candidly about the five years she spent as a single woman between her on-off relationship with Justin Bieber, which ended in spring 2018, and her love story with Blanco beginning in June 2023. She feels as if there was a good reason she didn’t have a partner during that time period: She needed to learn how to manage “anger” and “collect [herself].”

“I felt like in other situations of mine, I was very reactive,” she started. “I think that’s why I was alone for five years because I really needed to collect myself. I think, in the past—that’s why I say to him [Blanco] all the time—10 years ago, it’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted to be with you; I just wouldn’t have been in the right headspace. And I don’t think that you deserve what I had gone through before.”

Gomez opened up more about what her single era taught her and how Blanco further helped her along:

“I’ve learned a lot of lessons, and I've made mistakes, and I just want this to be right. So for me, that was a lesson that I had to learn, because I think girls can equally want to be right [in disagreements]. It was really difficult in the past, and he’s made it unbelievably easy, to the point where, if I even get to the point where I’m so frustrated, he’s very quick to understand, [saying], ‘I hear you, like you’re allowed to feel that.’ And that helped me shift where my mind used to go, which was a little bit of anger.“I respect Benny because he’s done nothing but respect me. I, again, trust him. I can tell him anything, even if it’s about something that’s uncomfortable, and ‘Maybe you should just talk to your girlfriends.’ He is that [‘girlfriend’].

And that helps calm me down to say, ‘Okay, so I’m going through these things because of maybe what I had before, or whatever it is.’ Nothing is ever bad. Nothing in my life I regret, and I’m so, so happy for my journey, and I’ll continue to be. It is a lesson that you have to be patient and learn. And I just, I can never picture myself disrespecting him.”

During their discussion, Blanco touched on how he knew going into dating Gomez that he was “dating every single person [she’s] ever dated,” too.

He said, “I feel like at the beginning, there were a few almost sabotages. At the very beginning, in her first few trips away, she was still gaining that trust. So there were moments.”

“Of sincere doubt,” Gomez chimed in.

Blanco then explained how he handled those “moments”:

“We all have moments in our life because we’re only made up—I tell everyone this—it’s like when you start dating someone, you’re not only dating them, you’re dating every single person they’ve ever dated, every single relationship they’ve ever had in their past, because you’re getting every piece of baggage that that person’s carried and that [includes] what they’ve learned through their own personal life, through their life with partners, with their parents, with this, that. And I had to find a way to build that trust with her, not make it feel overbearing and make it feel real and make her actually believe it and vice versa. Like I know that she fully—if I say, ‘Hey, I’m just going to do this today,’ there’s nowhere in her mind that’s thinking that [might not be true].“I always told her, I said, ‘It’s okay if you have moments of doubt in something, in a feeling. Always talk to me. And I’ll talk you through anything that you may have.’ You know, if you say, ‘Hey, I know this is a crazy thing, I just had a dream, and I woke up from this dream and I was upset.’ Sometimes she’ll just say like, ‘Please tell me I can trust you,’ or ‘Please tell me you’re not doing anything stupid.’ And I say, ‘You can call me anytime you want.’ And I’m aware of her strengths, and I’m aware of her weaknesses.

“And what I try to do is surround her with a lot of things to help her. So if she’s away, and I have to go to a dinner, then a party, then this thing, then that thing, it’s a simple text in between each things that says, ‘Hey, babe, I’m going to this next thing. I’m thinking about you.’”

You can watch their full conversation below: