L-R: Actress Francia Raisa with Selena Gomez in 2014; Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Unlikely HeroesSelena Gomez dropped a bombshell on her Instagram Thursday morning, revealing she’s been recovering from a kidney transplant.
Selena, 25, posted a picture taken in a hospital room, in which a smiling Gomez is laying in a bed, tenderly holding the hand of another young woman lying in a bed to her right. The caption reads, in part, “I’m very aware some of my fans had noticed I was laying low for part of the summer and questioning why I wasn’t promoting my new music, which I was extremely proud of. So I found out I needed to get a kidney transplant due to my Lupus and was recovering. It was what I needed to do for my overall health.”
After thanking her family and her doctors, Gomez also introduced her fans to her donor, the woman next to her.
“And finally, 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.”
Raisa, 29, is an actress, best-known for her role on TV’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She and Selena have been friends for some time.
Selena revealed in 2015 that she suffered from lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, and even underwent chemotherapy as part of her treatment. She’s occasionally taken breaks from her career to manage both the disease and the anxiety she’s confessed it causes her, and as recently as last March, she made a sizeable donation to the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine to establish the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research.
“Lupus is still very much misunderstood, but progress is being made,” Selena writes in her Instagram post.
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