After everything she’s been through, Selena Gomez is done “being silent” and “protecting people who never protected her.” For those who missed it, the “Lose You to Love Me” songstress recently dropped her new album, Rare, and she definitely did not hold back on it. Now, the 27-year-old singer has opened up about why she decided to be so honest on the new LP.

“I used to be terrified of saying anything. I would find myself protecting people that never protected me or cared for me,” she explained to Billboard. “I wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing and I wouldn’t want people to think that I had any other motive, other than just being a kind person — though that is who I am and I am proud of that. I was just done, you know? Just done being silent, and I felt like I deserved to have a moment for myself, after going through so much, and throwing that all into this album. It wasn’t even a thought in my mind that I was doing the wrong thing.”

As fans know, the album came out on January 10, 2020, and fans still have it on repeat, TBH. It has 13 tracks in total, and some fans have speculated that a lot of the new songs are about her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber.

“I think I got to a place where I just said, ‘This is what I’m gonna do and I’m not gonna be afraid of it.’ People might react however they might react, but I know that I’m proud of putting out the music that I did with the content that it has,” she continued. “I want nothing more than to relate to people — and I want them to know that they’re not alone, and that all of these feelings are completely normal. They watched me grow up, so I think this was an important album for me to speak up.”

The former Wizards of Waverly Place star admitted that although she was in a dark place for a long time, she’s doing a lot better now.

“I turned bitter for a while. I was extremely bitter and very dry. I was just disconnected to my feelings for so long. But [now] I go to therapy, and I talk about everything that I’m walking through. I felt like, ‘Why do I do this? Why do I give myself away to people, even if it’s just friends or random people? Why do I do that?'” she said. “I realized it is because one of my strengths, that I thought was a weakness, is being vulnerable … If I can give you all of myself, are you able to take that, and take care of that? And if you’re not, then I’m still gonna be who I am. I’m just not gonna have you in my life, but I’m gonna continue to be who I am.”

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