Selena Gomez recently opened up about her unique bond with her mother, Mandy Teefey.
In a joint interview with Saoirse Ronan for Variety’s Actors on Actors series released on Wednesday, the Emilia Perez star spoke candidly about how Ronan’s role as a teenage mother in Blitz, reminded her of her mother growing up.
“My mom had me when she was 16,” she noted. “I do feel that we grew up together, and that’s a different perspective than someone who would wait until they’re older to have a child.”
She added, “I am so grateful that we were there for each other. It felt very Gilmore Girls.”
Despite her mother’s young age, she was a fiercely protective and vigilant parent, her daughter said. Gomez credits her mother’s protective nature with helping her navigate the challenges of young fame.
“My mom was fantastic,” the Only Murders in the Building actor shared. “She would never put me in a room by myself; she was very aware of things that I didn’t know. For example, if I had to go to a premiere and I was 16, she’d say, ‘You can’t go to the after-party. You can have fun, and then you’re going to go home.’ Little things that helped my sanity, if you will.”
This isn’t the first time Gomez has publicly praised her mother. She has often expressed gratitude for Teefey’s sacrifices and guidance. In an E! special, the “Single Soon” singer said she was grateful for her mother’s sacrifices and acknowledged the challenges her mother faced as a young parent.
“Having me at 16 had to have been a big responsibility,” Gomez said. “My mom gave up everything for me and had, like, three jobs.”
In a profile done by Time for their TIME Firsts multimedia project, Gomez said her mother played a crucial role in shaping her self-confidence.
“She had the ability to make me feel like I was still capable of doing anything I wanted,” the Rare Beauty founder said. “When I started working, my mom was the person in my life that helped guide me through most of that. Everything that I am has kind of become a little bit of what my mom has gone through.”
In a March 2017 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Teefey shared her experiences of becoming pregnant as a teenager and giving birth to Selena Gomez in 1992.
“I was a teen mom with Selena, obviously, and was very judged by that,” she explained.
“My neighborhood was a really rough neighborhood [with] gangs. With all of that stuff, and when I got pregnant, I think that’s what triggered, because I was like ‘Okay, I have another person depending on me. I gotta get straight,’ and that’s when I started hammering through. I’m like, ‘I’m not going to let her have the upbringing I did,’” she recounted.
She later married Brian Teefey in 2006 and gave birth to their daughter, Gracie, in 2013.
