Selena Gomez Calls Out Another TV Show For Joking About Her Kidney Transplant
Last year, a scene from the rebooted sitcom Saved By The Bell made light of Selena Gomez’s health. During her battle with lupus, Gomez received a kidney transplant from her friend Francia Raisa in 2017. The transplant procedure was rough; Gomez needed additional emergency surgery in it. So when a scene from Saved By The Bell had two fans talking about Gomez’s donor, with “Does Selena Gomez even have kidneys?” graffiti in the background, Gomez’s fans were not amused. After a fan uproar, NBC’s Peacock streaming service apologized for the scenes and donated to Gomez’s lupus charity. But now another streaming show has made another Gomez-related joke, and it has incurred the wrath of Selena Gomez herself.
A recent episode of The Good Fight, Paramount+’s spinoff of The Good Wife, three characters sit around a mailroom, laughing about how “now it’s like you need a permission slip to tell a joke.” They mention a few things that you can’t joke about — things like “autism” and “Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant.” That line may have been a reference to the whole Saved By The Bell situation — a joke about a joke about Selena Gomez, rather than a joke about Selena Gomez. It still pissed off Gomez’s fans. Here’s the scene:
Last night, Gomez herself addressed the scene without mentioning The Good Fight by name. She was just as pissed as her fans: “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.”
In that Good Fight scene, one of the characters asks, “Do you think we could get cancelled for even joking about being cancelled?” I guess they’re about to find out.