Selena Gomez had one of the most flawlessly smooth transitions from kid-friendly entertainment to entertainment with more adult themes as she got older, which isn’t always the easiest thing to accomplish for child stars.

These are my thoughts.

The Miley Cyrus distraction

There’s no way we can ignore or deny the Miley Cyrus distraction.

Selena was distancing herself from her Disney Channel image at the same time as Miley, which served in Selena‘s favor because people were way more distracted by what Miley was doing in comparison to Selena.

Went through a huge transformation to shed her Disney persona when she released Bangerz in 2013 including Wrecking Ball where she literally swung on a wrecking ball without any clothes on.

That was the same album that she released We Can’t Stop as a single, which is still considered one of the best party songs of this generation.

And she also released Adore You as a single in which she was giving hard-core bedroom energy throughout the entire music video.

That was also the timeframe when her raunchy performance with Robin Thicke on stage at the VMAs became globally infamous.

It sparked major controversy and started cultural conversations about how far was too far.

Miley chopped off her long brown hair, bleached it blonde, and was twerking at every chance she got.

While this was all happening, Selena was also doing her best to move beyond her Disney Channel image, but with the widespread distraction of Miley‘s antics, Selena was sort of skating by without snagging as much negative attention or headlines.

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