Selena Gomez has been at the center of intense controversy since she posted a tearful video response to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Reactions have been immense, forcing her to lose a considerable portion of her Instagram followership, with more than 700,000 users reportedly unfollowing her in the last month.
The singer had an emotional reaction after a crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which detained 956 people, according to the BBC. Though many related to her heartfelt message, it also sparked an uproar of backlash. According to Social Blade, Gomez lost about 715,000 followers in the past 30 days. Although this type of fluctuation is not an uncommon occurrence with high-profile celebrities, the timing in this case has begged questions about whether it was a result of her recent statements.
In the video, which has since been deleted, Gomez tearfully says, “Lo siento. All my people are getting attacked. The children. I don’t understand. Lo siento. I wish I could do something but I can’t. I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything, I promise,” she wrote, adding a Mexican flag emoji.
After taking the video down, Gomez reportedly doubled back on her initial response, saying, “Apparently it’s not ok to show empathy for people.” This did little to shelter her from severe criticism-many called out the fact that she did not use her platform and access to resources to take a far more active role in the situation. As one commenter bluntly put it, “Girl, you have the resources to do a lot. You could fund legal services, translation services and mutual aid programs.”
Others were less forgiving, like this one who called her display of emotion “pathetic” and told her to put her energy toward giving immigrants a leg up on legal entry: Indy100 reports others questioned her ethnicity, asking, “Is Selena Gomez Mexican?.”.
The controversy even reached the political arena, as the White House released a video titled, “Moms of Victims of Illegal Aliens SLAM Selena Gomez: You Didn’t Cry for Our Daughters.”
Despite the uproar and the decline in followers, Gomez still has a strong social media presence, with a whopping 422 million followers on Instagram.
