This heart wants to cry. Selena Gomez posted a behind-the-scenes video chronicling the journey leading up to her emotional performance at the 2014 American Music Awards last month. According to her video diary, the road was painful, but ultimately cathartic for the pop star.
The clip begins with an all-dolled-up Gomez, 22, reflecting backstage about her pending performance of “The Heart Wants What It Wants,” which was presumably written about her on-again, off-again love Justin Bieber. “Somebody asked me awhile ago, ‘What the one thing you wish people knew about you?'” she says. “And I said I wanted it to be my heart.”
The scene then transitions to a conversation between the Disney darling and her pal Tiana. “I feel like on the day [of the AMAs], it’ll be such a release,” Gomez says. “I’m just excited that people everywhere who are feeling what I feel and feel that, will get to see that, and I just want people to be able to relate to that.”
In one rehearsal, Gomez reveals that she was instructed to connect with her emotions and channel that energy through her performance, which featured equally emotional visuals like a giant moon, lightning storm, a weeping woman, and a man’s shadow. “I listened to one of my favorite worship songs,” she tells fans as the footage pans to Gomez, clutching her heart and bawling to the chorus. “It’s called “Oceans [Where Feet May Fail] by Hillsong United.”
“This performance is a little bit frightening, but I’m very excited,” she continues in her confessional. “I had the intention that I wanted it to be all of me.”
Finally, the big day arrives, and fans get a raw perspective of Gomez’s fear of vulnerability. She sees photographers and the red carpet, noting that the night is supposed to be “fun,” yet she’s “emotional.” The multi-hyphenate then endures a flurry of emotions — from anxiety to more lighthearted moments, including one scene where she’s bouncing up and down in her dressing room to her BFF Taylor Swift‘s smash single, “Shake It Off.”
She then takes to the stage, and the video transitions to footage of Gomez breaking down during each of her rehearsals, just like she did onstage at the Nokia Theatre Live on Nov. 23.
Despite the sensitivity surrounding her relationship with Bieber, Gomez said she has only “love and respect” for her former beau. “Going into the studio is just very therapeutic,” the single songstress told Norwegian radio station NRJ last week. “It was my way of having it be a message more to people in general.”
Watch her emotional video diary above!
