A voice change she links to vaping

Selena Gomez, 34, said in an Instagram story posted on Sunday, 18 October, that years of nicotine vaping had changed her voice. Fans have long pointed to the difference in how she sounds, and compilation videos comparing older and newer clips have circulated on social media for years. Gomez said she had used a lot of nicotine through e-cigarettes and that she could not get her old voice back. She laughed as she added that listeners who dislike her voice could simply stop listening.

“It's so stupid and it changed my voice”

Quitting, and a warning to fans

Gomez said she had managed to stop vaping and hoped to keep it up, while admitting that the process is hard. She described nicotine as very difficult to quit and urged anyone already struggling with it, or thinking about starting to vape, to stay away from it. Her view is that the habit is simply not worth it.

“Nicotine is so hard to quit and I just wanted to say, if you're going through it, or if you're even trying to vape, it's just not worth it”

She added that she was glad to have stopped and that people facing a similar struggle can get through it as well.

Earlier questions about her voice

In an Instagram live in December 2025, Gomez was asked about her voice and answered that her throat sometimes swelled from the inside and that she sometimes felt strange, offering no further detail. Some fans had linked the change to lupus, the autoimmune disease she has, and lupus flare-ups can cause inflammation around the larynx, which can make the voice raspy. Her voice has also deepened with age, which is not uncommon.

Health picture and public habit

Cancer researchers and doctors warn that vaping can cause serious health damage and that most products contain addictive nicotine. Vapes release far fewer pollutants than tobacco cigarettes, which the industry uses to promote them as a less harmful alternative, but long-term studies are lacking, so the effect of the remaining substances is unclear. Gomez's habit was not a secret: a vaporizer was visible in her hand at her wedding to Benny Blanco, and her vaping first became public in 2018 during a walk through Rome. Some people questioned her nicotine use after this admission, given the potential effect on her kidneys, and she received a kidney transplant from her friend Francia Raisa in 2017.

Career and background

Gomez is known for Wizards of Waverly Place, the Disney series that ran from 2007 to 2012, and for Only Murders in the Building, where she stars alongside Martin Short and Steve Martin. Her most recent film role cited in the coverage is Jessica Del Monte in Emilia Perez (2024). She first revealed her lupus diagnosis in a 2015 Billboard interview, after abruptly ending her 2013 tour to check into a rehab facility. She married the producer Benny Blanco in September 2025.