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“2019 goodbye,” Selena Gomez, 27, wrote at the start of the massive year-long retrospective she uploaded to her Instagram Story on the first day of 2020. Selena dubbed 2019 her “year of being the third wheel,” and in the tons of photos she posted, she recapped all the best moments. She met Taylor Swift’s new cat, Benjamin, in March. She welcomed her new dog, Winnie, in April. She turned 27 in July. But, what was she doing while her ex, Justin Bieber, 25, was getting married to Hailey Baldwin? Selena was having a blast. The “Look At Her Now” singer shared a trio of pics taken on Sep. 30, 2019, the date of Justin’s second (and more formal) wedding.
In one picture taken on that day, Selena posed with straightened hair and flawless skin. The two other photos showed the “Lose You To Love Me” singer surrounded by a handful of female friends. Judging by the cards on the table and the veggie tray, it seems Selena was hosting a game night with her besties. So, if anyone wanted to know what Selena was doing while Justin and Hailey, 23, were tying the knot, there you go. Selena was living her best life.
While Selena’s 2019 was her year of being the “third wheel,” 2020 will be the year she steps back into the spotlight. Her new album, Rare, is set for a Jan. 10 release date. “It’s the most honest music I’ve ever made, and I can’t wait for you to hear my heart,” she said when announcing the album. The standard album will have 13 tracks, including her collabs with Kid Cudi (“A Sweeter Place”) and 6lack (“Crowded Room.”) Oddly enough, her album comes out a week after Justin drops his new single, “Yummy.”
Selena said that Rare is her most “honest” work yet, and early reactions seem to support that claim. “I’ll never forget when I did play the video for ‘Lose You to Love Me’ and ‘Look at Her Now’ at [Taylor Swift’s] house with her parents,” Selena said during a December 2019 interview with KISS FM UK. “It was one of the coolest experiences because I’ve been friends with her for over a decade and love her family as well. So I was like, ‘Do you wanna just maybe see the video?’ and she’s like, ‘Amazing, of course.’ It was so hysterical, she just started turning off every single light in the kitchen and the room, and I was like, ‘This is not that intense, Taylor.’”
“[Taylor] and her mom just started crying, like, just tears and tears,” she added. “And they were crying because of how proud they were for me stepping into a whole new era of my life, and it not involving the horrible things, the abuse, the emotional chaos, it felt like I had a huge sigh of relief. And to see her and her mom feel that way, it was very sweet.”