Selena Gomez Sat Down With Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris to Discuss Mental Health Care and Voting

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By Carolyn Twersky Oct 29, 2020

“As a citizen, as someone who truly cares about their country, not voting is just not an option.”

Selena Gomez sat down with Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris to speak about the importance of voting ahead of Election Day on November 3rd. During the discussion, Selena shared why she’s voting as well as the issue that is most important to her. 

“To be honest, I think in the past, when I was younger, I wasn’t very educated on the voting process,” Selena admitted. “The past four years, I’ve experienced a lot and I feel my vote counts more than ever. As a citizen, as someone who truly cares about their country, not voting is just not an option.”

Senator Harris then brought up lupus, an autoimmune disease Selena has been open about suffering from. Harris pointed out that the disease, “disproportionately affects people of color” and her sister has it. 

“There’s so many women of color who have lupus and are still, you know, struggling to get the kind of attention and treatment that they deserve,” Harris said. “And that’s one of the things that Joe [Biden] and I are fighting for, which is to hold on to the Affordable Care Act and expand it.”

Harris explained that she believes health care isn’t just necessary for issues affecting the body, but also mental health issues. “You know, the way I think about it is that we have to understand healthcare, you can’t just think that the body starts from the neck down,” she said. “We also need health care from the neck up.”

Selena, who has been very outspoken about struggling with her mental health agreed. “I’ve had so many dreams about creating places that people could go to,” she said. “I think there’s a part of me that wishes we had some sort of place that felt like, OK, maybe you just need to get help. You know it should be something that people can understand and breakdown, because I truly know that this is something that’s important and important to me.” 

This year, one in ten eligible voters is part of Gen Z. Because of that, your vote is so important in this election, and Selena emphasized that when talking to Harris.  

“It’s really encouraging to see more and more young people come together for it because we are the ones that are going to trail blaze and we are going to be the next wave of people that truly are going to decide our future and I plan on doing everything that I can to help and to just also encourage people to vote.” 

Harris ended the chat by encouraging anyone who has questions about voting to head to IWillVote.com. 

CAROLYN TWERSKY Assistant EditorCarolyn Twersky is an assistant editor for Seventeen covering celebrities, entertainment, politics, fashion, beauty, and health. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io