Selena Gomez Reflects on the Realities of Growing Up in the Spotlight

"I don’t think I would’ve done it very young if I was thinking of myself now."

Selena Gomez—and some of her fellow Disney Channel peers—has been vocal about her experiences with childhood fame and how it has affected her adulthood. While Gomez appreciates the career she was able to build from her Disney days, it wouldn't be a conscious choice that she would make for herself now.

“I have no regrets and I have a fantastic family and there were rules laid down by my parents and I’m appreciative of that,” Gomez told Elle of being a child star. “However, I don’t think I would’ve done it very young if I was thinking of myself now. There were a lot of things that I felt stunted by. Then adding a lot of pressure from a lot of people didn’t help me develop a sense of self in my twenties. It was a very difficult time."

Now that Gomez is an adult, she carries the weight of that experience with her "every day." To cope, "I try my hardest to stay positive about everything and focus on things like this [movie] that really make me happy," the 31-year-old said, adding that she "would just say maybe wait and have a little bit of a life.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the Rare Beauty founder revealed that her post-Disney movie, Spring Breakers, was her most challenging role to date “because I was only 18 or 19,” she said. “It was the first thing I did right after my Disney show, and it was such a crazy detour. That’s when I knew I was going to fall in love with filmmakers and really gritty, fun stuff that was a little too graphic.”