Selena Gomez has threatened to delete her Instagram account after being criticised for her silence on the Israel-Palestine war.
The pop star, 31, who has been a UNICEF Ambassador since 2009, took to Instagram in a now-deleted post on Thursday to share that she was ‘taking a break’
from the platform.
She threatened to delete her Instagram account, which is currently still active, and said a post won’t ‘change the world’ as she seemingly addressed backlash for her social media silence on the Israel-Palestine war.
It comes after Selena shared a video promoting the Rare Impact Fund to mark World Mental Health Day earlier this month, but fans later took to the comments section to criticise her for her silence.
After Selena disabled comments on her more recent posts, some of her 430million followers went back to her video from October 4 to comment that she should have spoken out about the war due to her role as a UNICEF Ambassador.
Appearing to respond to the backlash, Selena then wrote in a now-deleted Instagram Stories post: ‘I’m taking a break and deleting my Instagram. I’m done. I do not support any of what’s going on.’
Her latest post came days after Selena first took to Instagram on Monday to announce she was taking a ‘break’ from Instagram.
Breaking her silence, Selena said her ‘heart breaks to see all the horror, hate, violence, and terror that’s going on in the world’ but argued that a social media post won’t ‘change the world’ as she hit back at criticism.
‘People being tortured and killed or any act of hate towards any one group is horrific,’ she wrote in a statement.
‘We need to protect ALL people, especially children and stop the violence for good. I’m sorry if my words will never be enough for everyone or a hashtag.
‘I just can’t stand by innocent people [getting] hurt. That’s what makes me sick. I wish I could change the world. But a post won’t.’
The two-time Grammy nominee also Instastoried an old snap of her 10-year-old half-sister Gracie Elliott Teefey captioned: ‘Having a sister, everyday has made me tragically sick. I would do anything for children and innocent lives.’
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported Thursday that over 3,600 children (9K total) have been killed in the first 25 days of the war, mostly due to airstrikes in retaliation for their October 7th attack which left 1,033 Israeli civilians dead.