Selena Gomez and Interscope Records: A rocky relationship

Selena Gomez’s 1960s-Inspired Bob at the 2025 SAG Awards

For those who are not aware, Selena Gomez is rumored to have a rocky relationship with her label, Interscope. The base of these rumors stems from the following:

• Her Label hasn't done any playlisting or additional promotion for her latest album, I Said I Love You First.

  
  

• Selena joked how her label will kill her when asked about possibilities of releasing her rumored unreleased album, Seven Heavens.

  
  

• It was speculated last year that Selena was having disagreements with her label, which was the real reason for the album's delay and her planning to retire from music.

  
  

Now, let's not delay and start with Selena's history with Interscope.

Interscope Records signed Selena Gomez after she ended her contract with Hollywood Records in 2014. While working with Hollywood Records, Selena released 4 albums and one compilation in six years.

Selena mentioned that she chose Interscope Records as she wanted to reinvent herself away from her Disney image and have more artistic freedom. In 2015, Selena released Revival, a more mature album. Selena co-wrote most, if not all, songs on the album and experimented with many different sounds in songs like Good for You, Me and My Girls, and Perfect.

The album charted at #1 on Billboard. Selena even went on a tour to promote the album; she sold out stadiums. Eventually, her mental and physical health began to deteriorate, leading her to cancel the tour. This is where the issues started, I believe.

Selena started working on a new album in 2016. She was clearly enjoying this new work of hers as she teased and dropped many snippets. The sound was new for her [for example, Stained, Kind of Crazy (demo), and Feel Me].

Rumors circulated in 2017 that Selena was going to release an album. The album featured experimental songs such as Praise You Too, Stained, Higher or Heaven, Wolves, Bad Liar, and Fetish. Regrettably, the album was shelved and never released. The primary reason for this was her deteriorating mental and physical health. She was nowhere to be seen in 2018.

Her next album was Rare. Many people believed that she had reworked Seven Heavens into Rare. While it's partially true that Kinda Crazy, a 2016 snippet, made it into the album, what happened to the other songs that were eventually leaked? What happened to the more experimental songs that were leaked? Like the ones that were dropped in 2017? Many believed Selena no longer identified with them.

What if there was more than this simple logic to it? What if her label never really liked this sound? There are definitely pointers to it.

Let's talk about the Rare rollout. Lose You To Love Me and Look At Her Now; they were dropped one after another. Lose You To Love Me became an instant hit and

Selena's first #1.

What if I told you that Selena's first #1 was a song that she had to fight her label for to make it a single?

Selena stated in an interview that her label did not want Lose You to Love Me to be a single. They wanted to Look at Her Now to be a lead single. She fought with them to make LYTLM a single.

Further down the Rare rollout, Selena was exhausted and disinterested. She mentioned being out of energy and confidence in the era, further shown by her LYTLM AMA performance panic attack.

Another statement made during the Rare rollout was when she asked her fans to stream Rare and make it #1; she literally stated that she felt embarrassed asking this. I understand that this may seem like an unusual statement. But it connects to the point.

Covid happened, and the Rare era ended pretty quickly. It was literally dropped and neglected. The last part of the rollout was the deluxe version with amazing songs like She & Souvenir.

Her next project was Revelación, which was something more of a passion project. Her Spanish EP also got its flowers—nominated for a Latin Grammy, it became one of the highest streamed Latin albums by a female artist. It was indeed a good album, with some songs recycling the 2017 sound in some way (Buscando, Amor, and Vicio).

For the last five years, we saw Selena going in and out of the studio. She recorded many snippets and songs, worked with many producers, and probably was not pleased with what she was making. Many of these tracks were leaked, but none of them evoked the same emotion as her older tracks or her unreleased music from 2017. For example, I feel pretty.

Selena stated multiple times that her third album with Interscope is coming, and then that never happened.

She stated in a latin magazine interview that sg3 was supposed to have dance pop vibes with futuristic sound and nostalgia mixed.

I Feel Pretty was a fitting choice, as it was a reimagined version of an old classic.

In 2023, Selena released Single Soon with minimal promotion. Although the song didn't receive many positive reviews, it aligned with the concept of the previously mentioned album. Love On received even worse reviews in February 2024. One thing that is of note here is that Selena barely promoted Love On. She neglected it very much. If you go to her Instagram, you will barely see anything related to Love On.

It was March 2024. There were persistent rumors that Selena Gomez held a meeting with Interscope Records to discuss the sound of her music. There were rumors that Interscope wanted Selena to go for a dance-pop sound, while Selena did not enjoy doing that. She even posted a story after these rumors with a photoshoot of Good For You/Stained/Fetish and wrote, "I hear you guys ❤," which pretty much confirms the issue.

In those five years, Selena started a makeup line and starred on OMITB. Both were successful, so music wasn't something Selena had to do for survival. There were no true bounds on her besides her contract. As we can see, Selena has made numerous statements in previous years, expressing her belief that she only has one more album left in her, describing music as a hobby that has become out of control, and expressing her belief that she has outgrown the pop star life.

Benny Blanco has now mentioned in a recent interview — After they started dating, one random day, Selena confessed to Benny, crying that she does not know what to do next in music. Crying. This indicates that she doesn't want to completely give up music, but she also lacks hope.

Benny, as he stated, was stuck in his career and then proposed the idea of the collab album. Selena and Benny have repeatedly stated in recent interviews that Selena is enjoying music again after a long hiatus. Benny has worked with Selena for a long time and probably easily saw the difference in her enthusiasm during the Single Soon/Love On recording vs. her past projects, like Revival and the unreleased Seven Heavens.

Back to 2025/present times, Selena is very much promoting her latest works. Her work is also very mature and is a stark contrast to Single Soon/Love On. It has tonal similarities to her Seven Heavens. People are appreciating and praising it. She has released Stained exclusively on her web store and has mentioned Seven Heavens multiple times and joked about how her label might kill her for that.

So why have Interscope and Selena Gomez ended up the way they seem to? I believe Interscope signed Selena Gomez after her Stars Dance era when she was the hottest thing. She made news, and she makes news regardless of the circumstances. Nonetheless, we can all agree on her impact, whether or not we like her. The events that followed were much more complex. Interscope has released two albums in 10 years and one tour. She was profitable but not really frequently, I think? On top of that, she can definitely be a lot. Therefore, they shifted their focus to other stars and younger singers such as Billie, Dua, and Olivia. After Selena barely promoted Love On and did not go with their vision for SG3, they probably decided not to support her album and "shadow" it by not playlisting it and weird copyright strikes on her accounts.

This is what I believe occurred. It is sad to see. I am happy that Selena is enjoying this era, and I hope she continues to make more splendid music while enjoying herself.

She left the Hollywood Record for Interscope Records, hoping for more freedom and more artistic integrity. When she tried that in Seven Heavens, it did not pan out greatly, and slowly they ditched her. Interscope found more artists who were younger and hotter than her.

She regrets that she thought Interscope was different, and she hates how she ended with not much freedom at the end of the day in Interscope Records. The song is about her fame, her strength as an artist, and her relationship with her label.

Here at Boss Global Radio, we will continue to support and empower our beloved Selena Gomez till the finish line.