Selena Gomez Slams the ‘Tasteless’ Reference a TV Show Made About Her Kidney Transplant

Selena Gomez is hitting back after The Good Fight made a reference to her kidney transplant. 

For context: In the episode, a group of people are debating what they can and cannot joke about. When one person says, “Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant,” another responds with, “Put one in just to throw everyone off. One that is so inappropriate, even you wouldn’t joke about it.” 

The message, it seems, is Gomez’s kidney transplant is not something you can joke about. This is corroborated by a source who told Variety, “If you watch the episode in full, the reference to Selena Gomez is part of a discussion the characters are having about topics that are not okay to make fun of and the idea of cancel culture and being canceled for telling a bad joke. The reference is that Selena Gomez’s transplant is not something you can joke about.”

But Gomez still took the show to task—well, not directly. She didn’t mention The Good Fight by name, but she did say, “I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing, but sadly it has apparently. I hope in the next writers’ room when one of these tasteless jokes are presented it’s called out immediately and doesn’t make it on air.” 

The only other TV show that’s mentioned Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant is the Saved by the Bell reboot, which last year aired an episode where several characters debated Gomez’s donor. And in one scene, the phrase “Does Selena Gomez even have kidneys?” was written on the wall in graffiti. “Respect Selena Gomez” started trending on Twitter as fans posted messages in support of the pop star. Peacock, which aired the Saved by the Bell reboot, told Glamour in a statement, “We apologize. It was never our intention to make light of Selena’s health.  We have been in touch with her team and will be making a donation to her charity, The Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC.”