Selena Gomez fan who shares her gut malady tells critics to 'shut up' about the singer's weight
A woman diagnosed with the same bacterial gut condition as Selena Gomez says it left her looking pregnant and people should 'shut up' about commenting on the star's body.
Singer and actress Gomez faced speculation after her weight appeared to fluctuate at various red-carpet appearances, with many suggesting she had used a weight loss jab like Ozempic.
But the 32-year-old hit back, commenting under a now-deleted TikTok video from November 2024, that her body changes were caused by small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) – where there is too much bacteria in the small intestine.
Gomez wrote on social media: 'This makes me sick. I have SIBO in my small intestine. It flares up. I don't care that I don't look like a stick figure. I don't have that body. End of story. No I am NOT a victim. I'm just human.'
The condition can cause symptoms like bloating, diarrhea and weight loss.
And like Gomez, Phoebe Lapine, 39, was diagnosed with SIBO in 2017.
The condition led to bloating, skin conditions and excessive burping for Lapine and she told DailyMail.com she 'feels' for Gomez.
Phoebe, a food writer, from Brooklyn, New York, said: 'I completely sympathize.
'I also know that she's talked about likely not being able to carry her own child. I had to have my child via a surrogate.
'I then had the irony of looking like I was pregnant so often with this SIBO.
'I really feel for her on an emotional level – especially since, body-shaming is horrible, but I'm sure there have also been pregnancy rumors as a result, which can be doubly painful.
'I think it's awful.
'Even when there's not something physical for people to comment on, I know that in the chronically ill community, there are so many people who have had their bodies commented on, maybe for weight loss in addition to weight gain.
'You have no idea what someone is battling behind closed doors. So I wish people would just shut up.'
Phoebe was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, a condition that damages the thyroid gland, in her 20s.
She described her symptoms as overwhelming – including experiencing 'crushing fatigue', insomnia, weight gain and dermatitis around the mouth.
Her struggles with finding information and solutions that worked for her body led to her writing a book, The Wellness Project, which documented her health journey.
But she started to experience 'unfortunate' gut symptoms again – including bloating that made her stomach bigger.
Phoebe said: 'They felt different to the IBS [irritable bowel syndrome] that I had experienced when I was in the throes of my Hashimoto's.
'I was just so bloated and it never seemed to go away.
'It was like there was a really uncomfortable inner tube in my abdomen.
'After getting my Hashimoto's under control, my weight was pretty stable elsewhere – so I really did look like I was pregnant.
'I was burping a lot, during and immediately after meals, so eventually I went to go see another doctor and they diagnosed me with SIBO. And that led me down a new rabbit hole.'
The burping and bloating is caused by gas production in the small intestine.
Phoebe said: 'There's definitely weight gain that can happen as a result of SIBO.
'But I think probably what everyone's commenting on, what she's experiencing, is just that bloating, which can be so obvious if you're wearing certain types of outfits, you're on the red carpet and whatnot, and it can be really volatile, and you don't always know when you're going to have some sort of reaction.'
Phoebe wants to clear up misinformation that SIBO is an incurable condition and claims she managed to treat it in just one year.
'At the end of the day, I had a pretty straightforward experience. I did one treatment. I got rid of the SIBO,' she said.
'But even with the most straightforward results like mine there's still the healing phase.
'Healing is what takes much more time than treatment, especially if you've been sick and undiagnosed for a long time,' she added. 'There can be so much residual damage in the gut just from having the SIBO untreated for so long.
'And then the treatments, in and of themselves, sometimes can cause more damage or more inflammation.
'I try to encourage people to give themselves a really long runway and to set their expectations for having it be a full year until you feel back to normal.
'I would encourage people to do their homework and to know that there is hope.
'Even if we live with these issues that lead to bloating or SIBO for the rest of our lives, there are short-term solutions that can help us feel better and that can help stabilise our gut and lead to a better quality of life.'
By LILY SHANAGHER
