Selena Gomez Responds To "Tasteless" Kidney Transplant Reference

 

CREDIT: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Selena Gomez and her fans have been calling out a recent episode of The Good Fight, where there was a reference to Selena's kidney transplant.

In the fourth episode of the fifth season of the Paramount+ show, a comedy television executive (Wayne Brady) asks Liz (Audra McDonald to compose a sensitive read for one of the comedians. Marissa (Sarah Steele), Jay (Nyambi Nyambi), and Jim (Ifadansi Rashad) proceed to contemplate the effects of cancel culture on comedy.

CREDIT: Sophie Muller

Jay wonders what topics are "off-limits" and the groups respond with necrophilia, autism, and "Selena Gomez's kidney transplant."

Fans of Selena were rampant about the "joke" and wrote everywhere "Respect Selena Gomez."

Selena herself responded with, "I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing but sadly it has apparently. I hope in the next writer's room when one of these tasteless jokes are presented it's called out immediately and doesn't make it on air."

CREDIT: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images

She also thanked her supporters for coming to her defense. 

"My fans always have my back. LOVE YOU." She wrote this beside a link to become an organ donor.

A source close to the show revealed, "If you watch the episode in full, the reference to Gomez is part of a discussion the characters are having about topics that are not OK to make fun of and the idea of cancel culture and being cancelled for telling a bad joke. The reference is that her transplant is not something you can joke about."

This comes after Peacock's Saved By The Bell reboot was criticised for the same offense. Peacock apologised to Selena about making light of her health struggles and made a donation to The Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC.

In 2011, Selena was diagnosed with autoimmune disorder Lupus and had to undergo a kidney transplant in 2017.