By now it’s old news that Selena Gomez is engaged to record producer, cookbook author, and foodie influencer Benny Blanco. Gomez made the announcement with an Instagram post last week. They’ve been dating for about a year.
None of this is surprising or even interesting to me. I, too, like someone who never looks like he’s had enough sleep and I’m happy she found one who will cook for her. I speak from experience when I say those are the best kinds. Gomez has been talking a lot lately about leaving her young, pop-stardom behind her and stepping into the next phase of her life, so it doesn’t shock me in the least that this includes marriage.
What I’m interested in and confused by is how Blanco proposed: on a Hollywood sound stage set to look like a Taco Bell picnic in a park. I’ve been lurking on the internet since Gomez announced the engagement, waiting for an explanation. Why not just take her on a real picnic in a real park? Was this a Taco Bell-sponsored event? If so, why was there not more visible Taco Bell branding? Blanco posted a behind-the-scenes video on his stories, but it was not illuminating beyond the fact that maybe the whole thing was recorded.
Behind the scenes look of the studio where Benny Blanco recreated a date to propose to Selena Gomez pic.twitter.com/b6jJmL5190
— Selena Gomez News (@SELENAT0RSARMY) December 14, 2024
Did she think they were making a commercial or content for his socials? Did they make content, and he just jumped at the chance to get the engagement done when there were already cameras there? Will this video ever see the light of day, or was it just for them? And if it was just for them that brings me back to, why not just do it at a real picnic in a real park?!
There’s something unsettling about all of this. Don’t get me wrong, he seems like a nice enough guy—like I said, the nice ones who can cook are the good ones—but to use a set and a brand deal for what’s supposed to be one of the most intimate moments of a person’s life feels shallow and performative. It also doesn’t feel like Gomez at all. She has a complicated relationship with fame and the internet especially, and despite all of her transparency about her struggles with that, she strikes me as an immensely private person. The idea of her being proposed to in such a way just feels wrong.
Blanco once did an interview where he talked about how they both “Go all out for every date” and talked about her love for Taco Bell, so maybe it’s just that. And, frankly, he’s super endearing.
But I’m still suspicious. I like them, I really do. I just hope it’s sincere.