Interview is conducted by former co-star James Franco

Feb 18, 2015 08:59 GMT  ·  By

Selena Gomez and her “Spring Breakers” co-star James Franco sat down for a chat that is included in this month’s edition of V Magazine, which also comes with a very surprising photospread of the former Disney star.

In excerpts from the interview published online, Selena talks about growing up in the spotlight, and somehow expectedly, about her much mediated romance with fellow pop star Justin Bieber, which came to a halt last year after several breakups and reconciliations.

Justin was her first love, she’s in no hurry to date again

Justin and Selena started dating sometime in 2010, and for almost 4 years, they were inseparable. Things took a turn for the worse in the final year of the romance, when they seemed unable to go on for a couple of weeks without breaking up, but they always reconciled.

Reports about his cheating and immature behavior, which may or may not have pushed Selena to try and drown her sorrows in alcohol, had been making the rounds for about 2 years at the time they broke up for one final time.

Selena has been single since, and from what she’s saying, she plans on staying this way for a while longer: Justin was her first big love and she will need plenty of time to get over him. Still, she is confident “the next time will be much different,” she tells Franco.

The first thing that will probably change will be the way she lets the media and the public into her life. Growing up in the spotlight is hard enough, but having your and your significant other’s every move scrutinized is even more difficult, she says. In all fairness, their oversharing stuff on social media didn’t help with their privacy.

Selena is all grown up

“There were a few months where I was a little depressed,” the singer / actress says of the final breakup, “where I wouldn’t leave [the house] as much. I think I drove myself crazy for a little bit. It was just easier to say, ‘Hey, do you mind running to the grocery store and picking some stuff up, I don’t want to get photographed.’ I’m finally getting a little bit more comfortable. It’s a process.”

It wasn’t necessarily an entirely pleasant process, but she wouldn’t take anything back, she wouldn’t change anything if she could.

Selena Gomez is all grown up and she doesn’t have to say it out loud to make it clear: the mere fact that she doesn’t bad-mouth her ex, though she could and would probably have enough reason to, that she is so nice in talking about their often-troubled relationship is the best proof she could offer that she is moving into womanhood.

At the same time, she’s learned how to navigate showbiz more easily, in a way that would expose her less. So when she says her next relationship will be “different,” you can count that it will be just that, if only in the sense that she will be playing it closer to the vest.