Fans are wondering why Francia Raisa, who famously donated a kidney to Selena Gomez in 2017, wasn’t in attendance at the Rare Beauty founder’s wedding to Benny Blanco.
Now, a resurfaced interview of Raisa from days before the wedding is coming to light, with the Grown-ish alum said she was “very happy” for Gomez to get married.
“She has a life and she is already a billionaire and I am grateful that I could do that for her,” she said of the transplant during a Sept. 25 interview with reporter Magaly Ortiz. Raisa also addressed claims that she was “angry” and “disgusted” with Gomez smoking after the kidney transplant.
“Well, right now [what] you’re asking me is nonsense that has been in the media and there are too many rumors. I’ve never said anything,” she explained. “When that rumor came out that I had gotten angry or something like that because [Gomez] was smoking, I wasn’t aware of those rumors.”
“So, what you’re asking me are rumors. No one knows what’s going on, and neither she nor I are talking about it,” she declared. “One day, maybe we will address it.”
Raisa was noticeably absent from Gomez’s star-studded wedding to Blanco, which took place in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Sept. 27.
The two stars have had a pretty complicated history over the years— after Raisa donated her kidney to Gomez, who has Lupus, the Disney Channel alum was nothing but grateful.
“There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa,” Gomez wrote at the time on Instagram. “She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me.”
“I am incredibly blessed. I love you so much sis,” she added.
However, the first rumors that the women were in a feud began in 2022 after Gomez called Taylor Swift her “only friend in the industry.”
“I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities. My only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift], so I remember feeling like I didn’t belong,” the singer-songwriter told Rolling Stone in November 2022.
Raisa responded to the interview by writing — and promptlu deleting — the word “Interesting” under an Instagram post.
By March 2023, Gomez called Raisa her “best friend,” and it seemed like water was under the bridge.
The “Emilia Pérez” star also said during the interview for Apple TV+’s “Dear…” that she “will never, ever, ever be more in debt to a person than Francia” for being her kidney donor. The debt, it appears, did not include a wedding invite.
