Actress, singer, entrepreneur, and producer Selena Gomez shared some sage advice from her close friend and fellow billionaire Taylor Swift at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “She said: ‘If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room,’” Gomez told Fortune‘s Ellie Austin. Gomez added that she surrounds herself with “really incredible people” and is not afraid to ask questions.
Gomez rose to fame at a young age. After acting on Barney & Friends at age 10, she became a Disney star on her own hit show Wizards of Waverly Place, which wrapped in 2012. More recently, she’s starred in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building and in 2020 founded her beauty brand Rare Beauty, a favorite among Gen Z.
Rare Beauty‘s booming valuation, estimated at $2.7 billion as of mid-2025, has made Gomez, 33, one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the world, with a large share of her net worth coming from her stake in the beauty company.
Despite her massive success, Gomez is reserved about her achievements.
When “something great happens in my life, I expect something bad to happen,” Gomez said. “Instead of being present and saying, ‘Okay, wow, we’ve done a great thing,’ which I do, but I’m always thinking, ‘Okay, but if this could go all go away tomorrow, so how can I make sure that doesn’t happen?”
Gomez said when she founded Rare Beauty, it was important to her to be surrounded by people who actually believe and understand her mission.
“I think a lot of people would have preconceived ideas of what I’m good at, and I should stay in my lane, and I should do what I’m here to do,” Gomez said. “But what I’m here to do is make a difference.”
A big component of her mission is mental health awareness. She cofounded mental health and wellness platform Wondermind with her mother Mandy Teefey and Daniella Pierson in 2021. This year, the company reportedly faced significant financial difficulties, resulting in missed paychecks to employees, and layoffs.
“There should be more opportunity for people [who] want to explore mental health,” Gomez said when asked about Wondermind’s reported struggles on stage. “All I’ll say is that most of it is definitely fabricated, but I definitely did my part.”
In 2020, Gomez also launched the Rare Impact Fund as part of Rare Beauty, with a goal to raise $100 million for youth mental health services and education globally. She donates 1% of sales to the foundation, which focuses on suicide prevention and crisis response, education, and communities of support. The foundation currently supports 30 nonprofit partners around the globe, said Elyse Cohen, chief impact officer of Rare Beauty.
Although Cohen said Rare Beauty’s choice to donate 1% of sales was “a risk,” but worth it.
“We took risks from day one, and it’s part of how we created the lane that we created in the beauty industry,” Cohen said.
