Watch: Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato Reunite for First Time Publicly in Nearly 10 Years
If you’re ready to have all the feels, come and get ’em.
On the opening night of Demi Lovato‘s It’s Not That Deep Tour, Selena Gomez reunited with her friend of 25-plus years backstage, resulting in the first new photo of the pair in almost a decade.
Their visit certainly caused some hearts to swell, but as the now-33-year-old Princess Protection Program costars have proved time and again, their bond has never depended on proximity.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Lovato told MTV News in April 2013 after Gomez had her first solo hit with “Come & Get It.” And, she admitted, “We’ve had periods of time where we grew apart and we just didn’t really talk.”
But not being in constant contact “doesn’t invalidate” a friendship, she added. “You know when you can pick up with someone right where you left off.”
Gomez concurred, capturing a selfie with Lovato taken months later, “It’s just the evidence of forever. No matter what @ddlovato.”
By then, the Disney Channel alums had successfully weathered the “Ask Taylor” era, which began in January 2010 when Lovato replied to a fan who asked her how Gomez was doing with that choice suggestion.
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The exchange, which took place outside a London hotel, launched countless feud theories. First, Lovato was chummy with Taylor Swift. Then Lovato went through a rough breakup with Joe Jonas, Swift went on to briefly date the Camp Rock star, Gomez and Swift became dear friends… Discuss.
But when Lovato was in a downward spiral toward the end of 2010, resulting in her first trip to rehab, Gomez and Swift were among the people who reached out to her—a revelation that helped quash the speculation that Gomez’s squad membership had come between them.
Gomez eventually acknowledged that she and Lovato were on the outs for a while, and she owned up to her role in how that happened.
“I’ve known her since we were 7, and we did fall apart for a while,” the Only Murders in the Building star told Seventeen in 2014, when she and Lovato, born just a month apart, were 21. “She was going through things and I was so young and it was confusing. I processed it saying, ‘OK, I don’t understand what she’s going through, so I’m just going to do this.’ I don’t think it was fair, and I’m so happy that I have her back in my life now.”
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Moreover, Gomez added, “Demi’s very, very strong. She’s the only person that I would tell the deepest, darkest secrets to. The only person.”
That wasn’t the end of social media sleuths playing guess-the-temperature when it came to the state of the singers’ bond, though, not least because Lovato unfollowed Gomez on social media later that year—”I think it’s just one of those things where people change,” she explained on Watch What Happens Live! that August, “people grow apart”—and Gomez singled out Swift as “one of the few people I’ve maintained a friendship with in this industry.”
But the #forever hashtags were back in force in 2015 as they exchanged birthday greetings, and all seemed right with the world once again.
“I love her. She’s like family at this point,” Gomez said of Lovato in September 2015, telling Entertainment Tonight, “It’s just nice to be able to see people that you grew up with succeed.”
Then, in 2016, it was Gomez who needed to take time away from the spotlight to focus on her mental health. And when complications from lupus led to her having a kidney transplant in the summer of 2017, Lovato applauded her friend’s bravery.
“I think that she is a very strong woman,” Lovato told People a day after Gomez shared she was recovering from the procedure. “I’m very happy and proud of her.”
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Gomez subsequently praised the raw 2017 documentary Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated as “beautiful,” writing on Instagram that October, “You always continue to [be] bold and real. I wish more people were like you. Love you.”
They’ve been going back and forth like that ever since, forever linked due to their shared days in the child star trenches though their paths have long since diverged. And yet, that connection they forged 26 years ago has always allowed them to find their way back to each other.
After knowing Gomez from Barney & Friends, “I felt this safety when I came into the Disney Channel, having a built-in friendship there already,” Lovato reflected on a March episode of the Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast. “I’m so grateful for that, will always be grateful for the friendship that I have and continue to have with her.”
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And Gomez, who has always cheered Lovato’s success, raved on her Instagram Story after catching the It’s Not That Deep concert April 13 in Orlando, “I am in tears. This was hands down one of the best shows. Oh and the VOCALS? Psh *blown away*.”
What’s better than a #forever friendship that you can always return to?
See more of your favorite celebrity BFFs:
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