Jeff Garlin called out the Internet for the sexualization of Selena Gomez, and now Selena isn’t calling him back.
Earlier this month, Garlin made some comments about his onetime Wizards of Waverly Place co-star during a Huffington Post interview, and his words went viral. “I see those chubby cheeks — she’s a kid!” he said at the time about the 22-year-old singer/actress. “This is disgusting that it’s happening so young.” What bummed him out most is how people thought he was mad at Gomez, when he was really mad at how she’s treated.
“I made this point that I’m upset about how the Internet uses her for sex,” he said during an interview Wednesday with Take Two on L.A. NPR station KPCC. “You know: ‘Hot pictures of Selena Gomez!’ Hot this, hot that. And they’ve been doing it since she was 16. … So all these sites hook that story and say, ‘Jeff Garlin disgusted by Selena Gomez.’ All these negative things that I never said.”
Sexualization of Selena Gomez Is ‘Disgusting,’ Jeff Garlin Says
Garlin made a point to reach out to Gomez after the interview, but at some point, she let the conversation lapse.
“I wrote her the second that I saw that it got picked up,” he said. “I texted her, and she wrote back, excited to hear from me. I talk to her every once in a while, you know. [But] I can’t get her to text me back now. Here’s what I know happened: She’s somewhere and some interviewer says, ‘What do you think about what Jeff Garlin said about you?'”
See Garlin tell the story in the video below, starting at 32:50.