Selena Gomez, 31, is not one to miss a bestie’s birthday! On the day of Francia Raisa‘s 35th birthday on Jul. 26, the pop sensation took to her Instagram to share a carousel of photos of the Grown-ish alum to celebrate her special day. “Happiest of birthdays to this special human beings [sic]. No matter where life takes us, I love you. @franciaraisa,” Selena captioned the emotional post, along with a red heart emoji.
The post included three throwback photos of the longtime friends. In the first slide, the brunette beauty and Francia gazed into each other’s eyes, as they enjoyed a glass of champagne in a convertible. The birthday tribute got even cuter in the second slide, as Selena embraced the How I Met Your Father star from behind. Finally, the last slide featured a snapshot of the two ladies hugging side-by-side while they were all dolled up for an event in years prior.
Soon after the 31-year-old shared the birthday tribute with her 426 million followers, many of them took to social media to react. “Y’all can say what you want, but Selena Gomez has been nothing but kind and appreciative to Francia since the very start. Not ONCE did Selena ever cause Francia to get any hate the way Francia has to Selena & that’s just the truth,” one fan tweeted. Meanwhile, a separate fan added, “What a turn of events, notice how Selena never was the bitter one!”
As many know, the two were allegedly in a feud after Selena failed to mention Francia’s name during a Nov. 2022 interview with Rolling Stone. The “Wolves” hitmaker famously noted that Taylor Swift was her “only friend in the industry.” Not long after the interview was published, Francia took to the comments section of the post and called her friend’s statement “interesting,” per InStyle.
Despite this, Selena recently spoke about her friend during an appearance on Apple TV+’s show Dear… on Mar. 10. The “Lose You To Love Me” artist praised Francia for donating her kidney to her back in 2017. “It was one of those moments where I felt watched over. I know I was so, so, so lucky,” she explained at the time. “I understand that that doesn’t happen for a lot of people and I know the outcome of some of those situations and how serious they are, so I do not take it lightly that it’s happened to me that way.”
Selena then added that she “will never ever, ever be more in debt to a person than Francia.” The Only Murders in the Building star also went as far as to call Francia her “best friend.” Although Francia has been re-posting her friends’ tributes to her on her birthday, she has not re-posted Selena’s post at the time of publication.