As Selena Gomez was dealing with what could have been the final frantic weeks of planning her wedding on Saturday, the famous bride had to contend with a pretty lurid scandal involving her mother, Mandy Teefey, and allegations that Teefey abused drugs and engaged in other questionable behavior while running their mental health startup, Wondermind.
In early September, The Cut published a lengthy expose on Teefey’s alleged “instability,” reporting that the Wondermind CEO often holed up in the company’s Los Angeles office, which employees said she turned into “a drug den.” Among the more lurid allegations coming from more than a half dozen former and current employees: Teefey often appeared intoxicated, was once seen snorting what appeared to be Ritalin and would be administered IV drips containing mysterious substances.
Employees also blamed Teefey’s questionable management style and her “family dysfunction” with Gomez for tanking the “grand mission and basic” operation of a company that the mother and daughter co-founded with a third person in 2022, The Cut reported. The company’s aim was to create engaging and informative mental health-related content, including a website, podcasts, TV shows and films, that would “destigmatize” mental-health problems and “democratize” its care. Instead, it struggled to make payroll multiple times and had to lay off 60% of its staff in May, according to the Sept. 2 report in The Cut.
Fast forward four weeks. This past Saturday, the “Only Murders in the Building” star married record producer Benny Blanco in a luxe ceremony on a cliff near Santa Barbara, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with celebrity friends, including Taylor Swift, looking on. But a number of headlines focused on her famously difficult relationship with her 49-year-old mother, with one report saying that Teefey was “left shattered” that her 33-year-old daughter didn’t ask her to walk her down the aisle.
“Age 16, Mandy Teefey gave birth to Selena Gomez in a rough Texas neighbourhood rife with violence,” the Daily Mail said in a report on Gomez’s supposed snub of her mother. “When Gomez was just five, Teefey split from her father, and continued to raise her daughter as a single mother, often working multiple jobs to support Gomez’s fledgling artistic passions.”
“So you might think that Teefey would have been the obvious choice to walk Gomez down the aisle before saying ‘I do’ to fiancé Benny Blanco on Saturday,” the Daily Main report continued.
Instead, Gomez asked her maternal grandfather, David Cornett, to give her a way, a choice that was “a devastating blow” to Teefey, the Daily Mail said.
But Teefey tried to brush off such reports on Sunday, with an Instagram post celebrating the wedding and the fact that her father walked her daughter down the aisle. Earlier this month, Teefey also denied The Cut’s report about alleged substance abuse, especially insisting that she “absolutely” never snorted stimulants in Wondermind’s headquarters.
“I started Wondermind because I wanted to help people with mental illness,” Gomez’s mom told Us Weekly at the time. “It’s unfortunate that a few disgruntled employees with an ax to grind can spread lies about me and distort the truth.”
Teefey sounded far less defensive and much more upbeat in her post Sunday about her daughter’s wedding.
“What a perfect celebration for the most kick ass couple I know!” Teefey said. “The evening couldn’t have been more beautiful and perfect! Absolutely flawless! All my love to my beautiful daughter @selenagomez and to the greatest son in law @itsbennyblanco!!! It was a fairytale come true and it was beyond heartwarming watching my father walk her down the aisle!!! XO.”
Us Weekly reported that Gomez had let her fans know back in April that she had special wedding plans involving her grandfather.
“I am looking to have a special dance with my papa,” the singer and actor said in a podcast interview. “He never got a chance to walk my mom down the aisle because — good for my mom — she decided to go to Vegas and was like, ‘Whooo.’ It’s very cute that they did that, but I wanted to give my grandfather the opportunity to have that.”
Gomez also had been open about the fact she had living with her grandparents in a house in Encino prior to meeting Blanco and moving into their $33 million mansion in Beverly Hills.
“I live with my grandparents so we’re always in the kitchen and we’re always cooking,” she told the Food Network at the time.
Whatever happened with Gomez’s march down the aisle, she’s faced some unfortunate PR involving her relationship with her mother and what’s been going on with Wondermind.
Gomez has been somewhat upfront about their relationship in the past, describing it many times as “very Gilmore Girls.” But unlike the popular TV show, Gomez was seriously burdened by her mother’s troubles from a young age, according to The Cut. Those troubles included Teefey being a frustrated actor herself, while also having mood swings, bouts of mania and “self-medicating” with alcohol when Gomez was young.
After Teefey split from Gomez’s father, she was diagnosed, first with bipolar disorder and later with ADHD and PTSD. Meanwhile, Gomez began getting parts in TV as a child star and enjoying increasing success as a young Disney Channel star. Teefey and her second husband, Brian Teefey, also became her managers.
But as Gomez became even more famous, she also dealt with her her own health struggles, notably being diagnosed with lupus, along with anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder as well. Her lupus also led to her needing a kidney transplant in 2017. By that time, Gomez had fired her mother and stepfather as managers, and she and her mother had become estranged, The Cut reported.
The mother and daughter reconciled in 2019, and they launched Wondermind in 2022 with entrepreneur Daniela Pierson, according to The Cut. The idea was that Teefey and Pierson would run the company, while Gomez would be Wondermind’s “chief impact officer, an expectedly indeterminate title for a busy celebrity partner,” as The Cut said.
Despite Wondermind’s early promise, the company has struggled, according to The Cut. Pierson left after a year under a cloud of speculation about her rocky relationship with Teefey. To employees, Teefey didn’t have the experience to run a business on her own, while they also noticed that she seemed eager to distance herself and the company from her daughter’s brand, as if she “resented her public image as Selena’s mom.” By the fall of 2024, according to employees, Wondermind’s finances were in a “dire” situation, and it began to have trouble making payroll, according to The Cut.
The controversy over Wondermind was one factor in Gomez’s decision to ask her grandfather to walk her down the aisle, The Daily Mail reported.
“Mandy can sometimes be a loose cannon,” a second insider told the Daily Mail. “And that’s partly the reason Selena didn’t choose her.” Even though it took Teefey a few weeks to accept her daughter’s decision, “she didn’t try to talk Selena out of it,’ said the insider. ‘She realized this is the way it’s going to be.”