Selena Gomez Says Fans Want Her to Still Look Like She Did in 2016

Selena Gomez said in a new interview that she thinks people would rather freeze her in time to look like she did a decade ago than embrace her current style.

“I’ve got to be honest, the 2016 throwbacks are fun, but people get really intense,” the singer-actress told People in a cover story published Wednesday (Sept. 16). “I think people want to freeze me in time to that period of my life.”

The topic arose after Gomez was asked about her smoky eye that she frequently wore 10 years ago. Fans have recently recirculated photos and videos of the Only Murders in the Building star’s best looks from that era, which she described as such a hectic period in her life.

“Of course I had to rock a smoky eye,” she added. “I was trying to be cool! I think people always want me to look the way I did, and that’s just not going to happen.”

In 2016, Gomez released her Billboard 200-topping album Revival in October of the prior year, which featured Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits “Hands to Myself” and “Same Old Love.”

She was also the most followed person on Instagram at 23 years old that year and appeared in The Fundamentals of Caring.

By 2026, Gomez operates a beauty business named Rare Beauty and is married to producer Benny Blanco, with the couple approaching their one-year wedding anniversary.

“We’re still in the honeymoon stage,” she told People. “It just feels so wonderful to have a partner that genuinely listens and meets you right where you are, whatever that mood or day looks like. I need him, and I love him. He is a very joyful human: fun, spontaneous and he loves to talk.”