Selena Gomez opens up on her life-changing kidney transplant
- By Web Desk -
- Oct 27, 2017
Selena Gomez has opened up about her kidney transplant and how her friend and actress Francia Raisa saved her life.
“My kidneys were just done. That was it,” the singer said in a tearful interview on the Today Show on NBC News.
“I didn’t want to ask a single person in my life and that was the day, when I came home, I found out she volunteered and did it.”
“You feel that Francia saved your life,” asked host Savannah Guthrie. “Because she did,” replied Gomez. “That’s it.”
The 25-year-old pop singer underwent the transplant earlier this year due to Lupus. Her friend and ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’ actress Raisa was her donor.
The former Disney star announced the news on Instagram by posting a picture of her and Raisa holding hands on their hospital beds.
“There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa. She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed. I love you so much sis,” part of the photo’s caption read.
Raisa, 29, also shared the photo and said she was “beyond grateful” to have had the opportunity to help her friend.
“I am beyond grateful that God would trust me with something that not only saved a life, but changed mine in the process,” she wrote.
“This was part of our story, and we will share it soon, but what is important now is that this is not the only story.”
READ MORE: Singer Selena Gomez reveals kidney transplant
The two stars are close and reportedly met in 2007 when the stars visited a children’s hospital.
“Selena and I were in the same group and we just clicked,” Raisa told Latina magazine, and they have been friends ever since. Raisa’s mother Virginia Almendarez said “They’re like sisters.”
Gomez has been recovering since the transplant but is set to perform her new single at the 2017 American Music Awards. The singer publicly revealed that she battles Lupus in 2015.