Selena Gomez has been open about her parents’ impact on her through the years

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Selena Gomez’s biggest fans are her parents: mom Mandy Teefey and stepfather Brian Teefey.

“When I started working, my mom was the person in my life that helped guide me through most of that,” Selena (whose dad is Rick Gomez) said in TIME Firsts. “Everything that I am has kind of become a little bit of what my mom has gone through. She had the ability to make me feel like I was still capable of doing anything I wanted.”

After Mandy and Brian got married in 2006, they managed Selena’s career for eight years as she skyrocketed to fame on Disney Channel.

Selena has continued to work with her parents through the years, including producing the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why and co-founding the mental health organization Wondermind with Mandy.

While the family loves to create together, Mandy believes being a mom is her most important job. “A mom’s love for their children is pretty fierce,” Mandy captioned a since-deleted Instagram in December 2017. “Family is what matters.”

Here is everything to know about Selena Gomez’s parents.

 

Mandy welcomed Selena when she was a teenager

MANDY TEEFEY INSTAGRAM

Mandy and Rick met when they were teenagers going to school in Grand Prairie, Texas. Mandy became pregnant when she was 16 years old, and the pair welcomed Selena on July 22, 1992.

“I was a teen mom with Selena, obviously, and was very judged by that, even by my counselors and my teachers [who said] that I failed and just let go of it,” Mandy shared with Entertainment Tonight in March 2017.

She continued: “My neighborhood was a really rough neighborhood [with] gangs. With all of that stuff, and when I got pregnant, I think that’s what triggered, because I was like, ‘OK, I have another person depending on me. I gotta get straight,’ and that’s when I started hammering through. I’m like, ‘I’m not going to let her have the upbringing I did.’ “

Said Gomez previously: “Having me at 16 had to have been a big responsibility. My mom gave up everything for me and had, like, three jobs. She supported me, sacrificed her life for me.”

Mandy inspired Selena to become an actress

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Selena caught the acting bug when she was a little girl, thanks in part to her mom’s own passion for the craft. Mandy appeared in commercials, music videos and local theater productions — and Selena was by her side for it all. Mandy recalled that when Selena “was 6 or 7,” she tagged along for a rehearsal.  It was there that Mandy realized her daughter was going to be an actress.

“She went to one of my rehearsals with me and sat through the whole thing, not moving. On the way home, she was quiet, and then she goes, ‘You know, Mom, that might be funnier if you did it this way.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, no. She’s going to be an actor,’ ” Mandy told The New York Times in March 2017.

Selena later told Rolling Stone: “She was so cool. She was like Drew Barrymore in the Nineties, with her short hair and butterfly clips. She would make her own clothes. I was like, ‘Mom, I want to do what you want to do.’ And she’s like, ‘Okay, well, maybe we can put you in theater classes.’ And I was like, ‘Nope. I want to be on TV.’ ”

Mandy and Brian got married in 2006 and welcomed Selena’s half-sister Gracie in 2013

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When Selena was in her early teens, Mandy began dating her now-husband, Brian. The couple exchanged wedding vows in 2006. Five years later, Selena announced that Mandy and Brian were expecting their first child together — but just weeks later, Mandy had a miscarriage. The family often pays tribute to their daughter, whom they named Scarlett.

“Thank you to all the fans who honored our Scarlett yesterday,” Mandy wrote on Instagram in 2017. “Dec. 17th will never be the same, but we decide to celebrate her by writing her letters on red balloons and releasing them.”

On Mother’s Day 2013, Selena announced that she was going to be a big sister, and on June 12, 2013, Mandy gave birth to her daughter Gracie Elliot Teefey.

Selena was managed by Mandy and Brian until 2014

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As Selena rose to fame, Mandy and Brian took charge as managers of her career until 2014, when Selena decided she needed to change things up. At the time, Mandy was surprised, but she told TMZ that she respected her daughter’s choice and planned to continue to work with her on other projects.

Around the same time, Selena also signed a new record deal with Interscope and ended her Kmart clothing line, Dream Out Loud. In 2015, Selena reflected on the year prior with Elle, explaining that she “wanted to be a little uncomfortable” in her career. “I wanted to be my own person. I wanted to test myself. I wanted to see if I could really do it,” she said.

“I was like, ‘Mom, I gotta figure it out on my own,’ ” she told W Magazine in February 2016.

While Mandy and Brian no longer manage Selena, Brian has continued to manage other clients through his company LH7 Management.

Selena and Mandy co-produced Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why

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Selena has had the opportunity to work with her mom on several projects, most notably the Netflix adaptation of the young adult novel 13 Reasons Why. The book, written by Jay Asher, chronicles the aftermath of high school student Hannah Baker’s suicide through cassette tapes she left behind.

“One day [my mom] came home with this novel,” Selena told Metro.us. “I was about 16 or 17 when that happened. When I read the book, I saw that I could perfectly relate to the story. And above all, my fans could connect with it.”

The pair immediately got to work on a screen adaptation for the streaming show, with Selena set to star. Reflecting on their decision to adapt the book, Mandy told Yahoo’s BUILD Series that she wanted it to be a “transition piece” to help Selena take the next steps in her career after leaving Disney Channel.

The series got pushed back several years and Selena eventually passed on the role in favor of becoming an executive producer instead. Selena and Mandy helped cast actress Katherine Langford as the lead and the show premiered in March 2017.

Selena and Mandy have been open about their growing pains

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Mandy opened up about a difficult period in their relationship in Gomez’s documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me .

In 2018, when Selena checked into a mental health treatment facility, the pair weren’t speaking — and Mandy revealed in the documentary that she found out about Selena’s situation through TMZ.

“They called me and wanted to know what my daughter was doing in the hospital with a nervous breakdown. She didn’t want anything to do with me,” Mandy shared in the documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me.

She continued, “I was scared she was going to die. You hang on as tight as you can and try to help them with their treatment and that’s the hardest thing to do — to then go to bed and hope that they wake up the next day.”

Selena has said she has major regrets about how she treated the people in her life, particularly her parents, during that time. Although they have been incredibly understanding, she often apologizes to them.

“That’s why I say to people that I have the greatest friends and family, especially my mom and stepdad Brian because I shouldn’t have spoken to them the way that I did, and I shouldn’t have treated them the way that I did sometimes,” she said in the documentary. “I just say it over and over again. I say, ‘I’m so sorry,’ ’cause I remember certain things that I did, and I was so mean.”

Selena and Mandy founded the mental health organization Wondermind

In 2022, Selena and Mandy co-founded the mental fitness ecosystem Wondermind.

“For us, what mental fitness means is working with your mind each day,” Mandy told PEOPLE.

She continued, “Well with therapy, if you can’t afford one hour a week, what tools do you need to [help your mind]? So what we’re trying to do is have tools and podcasts and content that can help people understand the way different people’s minds work.”

Mandy added that, since mental health issues previously put “tension” on her relationship with Selena, she hopes Wondermind can “bring families together” and help them to better understand one another.