Early Life

Gomez was born in Grand Prairie, Texas to Ricardo Gomez and Mandy Teefy (née Cornett), a former stage actress who was 16 when she gave birth to Gomez. Gomez is an only child. Gomez' birth parents divorced when she was five years old, in 1997. Her mother Mandy remarried in 2006 to Brian Teefy. Gomez was named after Tejano singer Selena. Her father is Mexican and her mother is of Italian descent. Gomez stated that when she was a child she'd developed an interest in acting from watching her mother perform in theater productions. "My mom [Mandy] did a lot of theater, and I would watch her rehearse. When she got ready for the show and put on her makeup, I would sit behind her and color. She said, 'You have my lines memorized better than I do!' [...] One day I said [to her], "I want to be like you!"