On 8 November 2026, Page Six published an exclusive: the joint Rare Beauty campaign featuring Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato is not a revival of an old friendship but a purely business project.
The two former Disney Channel stars recreated the poster for the 2009 film "Princess Protection Program" and returned to the format of video blogs they used to make as teenagers. Fans erupted with delight at seeing "Delena" together after a long break. But a source close to the situation told the publication bluntly: "Demi and Selena are not best friends. They have smoothed things over enough to be in a better place. They will never be as close as they once were."
The idea for the campaign did not come from the actresses themselves but from a Rare Beauty employee—the vice president of integrated marketing. The collaboration launched on 28 October and included a limited-edition blush set with the shades each of them loves. Behind the scenes, it was not a spontaneous meeting of friends but a calculated marketing move by Gomez's brand.
Relations between them had indeed cooled over the course of a decade. In 2020, Lovato admitted in an interview with Harper's Bazaar that they no longer keep in touch, though they will always have warm feelings. In April 2026, Gomez attended a concert on Lovato's tour in Orlando—the first public step toward a rapprochement. Lovato later noted in Elle: different chapters of life, but now they can both collaborate and simply spend time together.
In her Instagram post, Gomez wrote about "25 years of ups and downs in life, friendship, and growth" and expressed pride in what they had been through. Those words sound sincere, but they do not change the main point: the adult lives of the two women diverged long ago. The shared history from the age of seven—from auditions for "Barney & Friends"—remains, yet the closeness that existed in the Disney era is gone for good.
Fans see nostalgia in this reunion and hope for a return of "the good old days." The reality is simpler and harsher: two successful women at 34 know how to be polite and even warm within the framework of work, but they do not seek to restore the former intensity of their relationship. The campaign gave them an opportunity to publicly acknowledge their shared history without pretending that everything had come full circle.
The question now is not whether they will become friends again, but how long even this fragile truce will last before the next project or personal crisis once again drives them to opposite sides.
