Selena Gomez has linked her shifting vocals to years of nicotine vaping.
The 34-year-old singer, who recently marked her first wedding anniversary with producer Benny Blanco, laid out the connection in a candid Instagram Story post. She told followers that heavy vaping had altered the voice they hear on her records, and she urged anyone considering the habit to steer clear entirely.
“I’m not going to be able to change my voice,” Gomez wrote. “I vaped nicotine a lot… Nicotine is so hard to quit, and I think 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. It’s so stupid.”
Gomez has faced persistent fan speculation about why her singing sounds different than it did in her early Disney and pop career. Late last year, she brushed off the chatter with a brief medical explanation. “There is no excuse, I don’t really care,” she said at the time. “I think my point is that sometimes things happen and my throat kind of swells in the inside sometimes. That’s all.”
Now she has offered a fuller accounting. She framed the vaping as a mistake she is working to undo, telling her audience that quitting remains a daily struggle.
“It’s changed my voice, so if you guys don’t like listening to my voice, that’s totally understandable,” she continued in her Instagram Story. “I don’t mind. Just don’t listen. But I am really excited because I stopped, and I just hope I can keep it up. If you are going through something, then you can get through it too. It sucks.”
Gomez’s public admission arrives as vaping’s long-term health effects draw increasing scrutiny from medical professionals. Dr Richard Shepherd, a prominent UK forensic pathologist, recently warned that vaping may eventually prove as damaging as traditional smoking.
“We know in medicine that some things take a long time to reveal their toxicity,” he said. “It was true of smoking. People used to smoke. It’s just a mild anaesthetic, a mild sedative. It’ll keep you calm.”
“It can take a long time for the adverse effects to become obvious,” Dr Shepherd added, “and my fear is that vaping is going to go down that same track.”
Gomez is not the only young performer to flag vaping’s toll. British singer Lola Young, 25, posted to TikTok this year describing severe respiratory strain she attributed to the habit. “That day has come, where my lungs feel like they’re battery powered, like they’re just one big battery, and breathing feels like a chore,” said the ‘Messy’ singer. “It feels like hard work. It feels like I should be paid for breathing. Feels like I should be paid to breathe.”
Gomez first rose to fame as a child actor on Disney Channel’s ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ before pivoting to a music career that produced hits including ‘Lose You to Love Me.’ She has been open about multiple health battles, including her 2015 lupus diagnosis and a 2017 kidney transplant, and has previously discussed how those conditions affected her stamina and appearance. The vaping revelation adds another layer to her public health narrative, this one tied directly to the creative tool she relies on for her dual career.
Gomez has not indicated whether the vocal changes will affect upcoming recording plans or her scheduled live performances.