It’s been three years since Selena Gomez received a kidney transplant from her friend Francia Raisa after she suffered organ damage caused by lupus. Now, the star is done hiding her scar, and instead is embracing it as a sign of strength.
Gomez shared a photo to Instagram on Thursday (Sept. 24) in a sleek blue swimsuit from her friend Theresa Marie Mingus’ new swim line, La’Mariette. Her scar is visible on the inside of her thigh. “When I got my kidney transplant, I remember it being very difficult at first showing my scar,” she captioned the stunning snap. “I didn’t want it to be in photos, so I wore things that would cover it up. Now, more than ever, I feel confident in who I am and what I went through…and I’m proud of that.”
She also shouted out Mingus for making a company “whose message is just that…all bodies are beautiful.”
In a video for Self in 2018, Raisa revealed that she was warned by her social worker that recovery would be difficult. “It’s going to be hard, the recipient is going to glow and she’s going to recover a lot faster than the donor because she’s getting something she needs and you are losing something you don’t need to lose. It’s going to be hard.”
“And it was very hard,” she continued, adding that both she and the pop icon “went through a depression.”
