Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato have reunited for a Rare Beauty campaign that recreates their 2009 Disney Channel movie “Princess Protection Program.”
The collaboration, announced this week, pairs the longtime friends for the Delena Soft Pinch Blush Bundle, a $50 set featuring Rare Beauty’s best-selling liquid cheek color in Hope and Virtue shades plus a blush brush. Gomez, 32, and Lovato, 32, appear in promotional images wearing gowns and tiaras while seated atop luggage, mirroring the film’s poster.
“Once a Princess, always a Princess 👑💗,” Gomez wrote on Instagram, sharing the image with her followers. She continued in the same post: “Best friends don’t just have each other’s backs. They make them blush too. @ddlovato @rarebeauty.”
The visual callback comes with a fashion upgrade. Gomez wears an Oscar de la Renta tiered gown from the house’s resort 2016 collection, while Lovato sports a Leo Lin yellow embellished mini dress priced at $3,295. In the original film, Gomez’s character Carter Mason favored teal and Lovato’s Princess Rosalinda wore yellow.
A press release from Rare Beauty declared: “The reunion the internet has been manifesting for years is finally here.”
Gomez expanded on the meaning behind the partnership in the brand’s official statement. “Coming together for this campaign was a beautiful reminder of that history and a chance to celebrate who we are today,” she said. “One and the same….always.”
Lovato echoed the sentimental tone in her own comments for the release. “Selena and I have shared a lot of memories over the years since childhood,” she shared. “So being able to connect in this way, in a campaign that feels so nostalgic to both of us, is such a full-circle moment.”
The two performers first crossed paths in 2002 at age seven while auditioning for “Barney,” launching a friendship that has now stretched across nearly 25 years. Their onscreen collaboration in “Princess Protection Program” arrived in 2009, when the Disney Channel original movie paired Lovato’s sheltered princess with Gomez’s small-town tomboy in a fish-out-of-water story that became a cable staple.
The relationship has weathered public distance. In a 2020 Harper’s Bazaar interview, Lovato acknowledged a brief falling-out between the two. “When you grow up with somebody, you’re always going to have love for them. But I’m not friends with her, so it felt …” she said at the time, before adding: “I will always have love for her, and I wish everybody nothing but the best.”
Signs of renewed closeness emerged in April when Gomez was spotted supporting Lovato from the audience during a concert tour stop, a moment that fueled speculation among Disney Channel alumni fans.
The Rare Beauty campaign marks their first formal professional collaboration since the 2009 film and its accompanying promotional period, which included the single “One and the Same.”