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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Isobel Lewis

Selena Gomez emotionally reveals secret Taylor Swift song written about her

Their friendship began when they both dated two of the Jonas Brothers, but Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez’s love for one another has gone on to rival that of any family.

And 18 years after they first met, former Disney Channel star Gomez, 33, has now confirmed that best friend Swift, 36, wrote not one, but two songs about her – and fans have only heard one of them.

Back when Swift dropped her ninth album Evermore in 2020, fans speculated that the song “Dorothea” was about actor and singer Gomez. The song, which Swift said at the time was about a “girl who left her small town to chase down Hollywood dreams”, addresses a woman who is “sellin’ make-up”, which fans saw as a reference to Gomez’s Rare Beauty cosmetics line.

Appearing on her husband Benny Blanco’s new video series Friends Keep Secrets on Tuesday (3 March), Gomez confirmed that, not only was “Dorothea” about her, but Swift had written another unreleased track about their friendship.

“‘Dorothea’ is about me,” she said. “I feel like a lot of huge moments that were self-defining, from relationships to family to love to hate, all of it in between – we were figuring it out because I was 15 and she was 18.”

“We didn’t really know what was going on. We’ve never seen each other any differently. When I listen to it, I’m so impressed by how it’s eloquently put.”

The pair have publicly supported each other at every turn (Getty Images for iHeartRadio)

Gomez then confirmed that she and Swift had also written a song “over, easily, a decade ago” about the pair of them called “Family” that was never released. “It [was] basically saying you have these amazing dreams. You want to be in a movie, in every crowd I see you,” Gomez recalled.

“Then her part was, you believe in my stupid dreams, like playing stadiums,” she said. “Now, when I listen to those songs, both of those things have happened for us. And that’s really sweet because back then, she was just like, ‘I wrote this song about us and it was just our story,’ and it was the sweetest thing.”

It was back in 2008 when Swift and Gomez became friends, having been seen on a double date with their respective boyfriends, Joe and Nick Jonas. According to Gomez, they “just clicked”, with Swift referring to Gomez as “the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister”.

In the early friendship days, back in 2011 (Getty Images for PCA)

Amid a notoriously cutthroat industry, the pair had clearly found a real connection. In fact, in a 2022 interview, Gomez said that Swift was her only friend in the industry.

Swift was one of the guests at Gomez’s wedding to music producer Blanco in September, and even gave a speech on the day.

Reflecting on their friendship on her husband’s podcast, Gomez said: “It’s absolutely unbelievable to come from 17 years of friendship, from multiple heartbreaks and love stories and fun stories in life. We both ended up, fortunately, being engaged around the same time and that was the coolest part.”

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