Selena Gomez says cooking with boyfriend Benny Blanco really grounds her

Selena Gomez says cooking with Benny Blanco is one of her favorite ways to spend time together.

On Wednesday, September 4, Gomez, 32, opened up about her relationship with the 36-year-old music producer while hosting a virtual event for her brand Rare Beauty using Instagram.

During a question-and-answer session, the musician spoke openly about the advice she would give her younger self.

“Don’t be so hard on me,” Gomez told the audience. “I was very hard on myself. If the teacher scolded me for talking too much, I would go home and think about it all day. If I had a crush on a boy and he asked a girl out in front of me, I would be devastated forever.”

“I was too hard on myself,” she added. “I thought I wasn’t good enough or sometimes I thought I didn’t fit in, and at the end of the day, you are exactly who you’re meant to be.”

Gomez was asked how she has learned to combat these feelings over the years.

“This might sound a little silly, but just stepping back and looking around, you know?” she said. “At home, for example, I like to just go outside and put my feet in the grass and sit there and maybe listen to a little music and just try to find things that really ground me.”

“I love fresh food and stuff. I’m starting to get into it because my boyfriend makes me do it,” she said of Blanco. “Just being in the garden and picking food that I can cook with. It sounds so silly and insignificant, but the older you get, the more you realize it’s OK to be simple and have simplicity.”

The former Disney actress also revealed one of the couple’s favorite dishes that they cook together – and talked about how they share their creations with friends and family.

“For example, one of the things I do is we’re going to make a bunch of tamales, which is one of my favorite foods, and we’re going to give them away to a few random friends,” Gomez said. “We’re just going to do it one day, and it’s a long process, but it’s so much fun. We’re going to listen to music, have a drink, make tamales and give them away to our friends.”

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Food has played an important role in their relationship from the beginning. Back in March, Blanco, who is also the author of Open Wide: A cookbook for friends — revealed Gomez’ favorite dishes that he often cooks for her.

“She’s a huge steak fan. So anything that has steak in it. Or yesterday I just brought her something, it’s not in my book but I brought it to her, she loves soup,” Blanco revealed at the time. “So yesterday she was filming a show, so I made a little soup and brought it to her.”

Also in March, Gomez raved about her boyfriend’s kitchen, showing off his custom designs and personal touches in an Instagram video.

“One of my favorite places is… his kitchen,” Gomez captioned the video, which shows countertops full of vegetables, meat and other food in a pan covered with aluminum foil.

The Only murders in the building The star and the pop producer first publicly confirmed their relationship in December 2023, but Gomez wrote on social media at the time that the couple had already been together for six months before the official announcement.