And Finally Artist News

Selena Gomez named her new kidney after Portlandia’s Fred Armisen

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 4 November 2022

Back in 2017, Selena Gomez revealed that she had undergone a kidney transplant. Now she’s let it be known that her new(ish) kidney has a name. That name is Fred, after ‘Portlandia’ actor and co-creator Fred Armisen. If you think that’s a bit weird, that’s the point.

“I named my new kidney Fred”, she tells Rolling Stone in a new interview. “I named it after Fred Armisen because I love ‘Portlandia’. I’ve never met him, but I’m secretly hoping he finds that out just because I want him to be like, ‘That’s weird’”.

Armisen has yet not commented on this news. Possibly because he finds it too weird.

Gomez underwent the surgery five years ago after been diagnosed with kidney failure following a bout of lupus. The donated kidney came from actor Francia Raísa, Gomez’s then housemate.

Having focussed more on acting in recent years, Gomez also says in the Rolling Stone interview that she has written 24 songs for her next album – the follow-up to 2020’s ‘Rare’.

This week she released ‘My Mind And Me’, the title track from a new Apple+ documentary, which is out today and explores her struggles with her mental health. But that song, she says, is not representative of how the new album will sound.

She explains: “‘My Mind And Me’ is a little sad, but it’s also a really nice way of putting a button on the documentary part of life, and then it’ll just be fun stories of me living my life and going on dates and having conversations with myself. I feel like it’s going be an album that’s like, ‘Oh, she’s not in that place anymore; she’s actually just living life’”.

Watch the video for ‘My Mind And Me’ here: