You have to live under a very large rock to not know who Selena Gomez is. When people hear her name they immediately think of The Disney Channel and her having the most amount of followers on Instagram. Most people don’t associate her with having a chronic autoimmune disease and going to rehab for several months. It’s crazy to think that you can’t tell what’s going on in a person’s life by their Instagram theme right?!

It is difficult to know every little thing about a person. To fill those gaps that we don’t have the pieces for, humans tend to make assumptions. Selena Gomez is a prime example. People look at her and think “okay, she’s pretty, skinny, wealthy, and famous so she is 100% happy”. People assume she’s happy because she has the qualities that are supposed to make you happy. In November or 2016, Selena ended her tour due to her battle with lupus, depression, and anxiety. When word of this got to social media, the world was in a state of shock and confusion. There was also a bit of anger towards Selena. People would post things on Twitter and Instagram saying, “what does she have to be sad about” and “she’s probably just doing it for attention.”

This happened with another celebrity: Chrissy Teigan. Chrissy is a model, author, and TV host. She recently had a baby with her husband, John Legend. Chrissy revealed that after having her daughter, Luna, she struggled with postpartum depression. Sharing this with the world was a brave thing to do, and she felt like she could help someone else who is going through the same thing by telling her story. A lot of people were supportive of her, while others did the same thing they did to Selena. Comments about how she has nothing to be sad about kept coming in by the minute.

This seams to be the common theme with celebrities and sickness, mental or physical. They can’t be sad because they have “the perfect life”. The thing is, you can only know so much about a person through a screen. Those people making those comments didn’t know Selena or Chrissy personally. People make assumptions and accusations based off of what they hear through the media, and what they see on Instagram or Twitter. We need to stop shaming people for their diseases because they don’t have a “valid enough reason for them”. We need to stop judging people on how we perceive them, and judge them for their character and who they are as a human being.