Selena Gomez says cooking with boyfriend Benny Blanco is “really calming”: “It’s just about keeping it simple”

The actress spoke to fans at an Instagram event about her love for sharing food with friends.

Selena Gomez/Instagram

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Selena Gomez says cooking with Benny Blanco is one of her favorite things to do together.

On Wednesday, September 4, Gomez, 32, hosted a virtual event for her brand, Rare Beauty, on Instagram, where she spoke about her relationship with the music producer, 36.

During the question and answer session, the musician spoke candidly about the advice he would give to his younger self.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Gomez told the audience. “I was too hard on myself. If a 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 depressed forever.”

RELATED: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco Relationship Timeline

Selena Gomez/Instagram

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“I was too hard on myself,” she added. “I thought I wasn’t good enough, and sometimes I didn’t fit in. At the end of the day, you’re just born the way you are.”

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

“This might sound a little silly, but it’s really just about stepping back and looking around,” she says. “For example, at home I like to just go outside, sit with my feet on the grass, listen to music, and find something that really calms me.”

Courtesy of Instagram

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“I love fresh food and stuff. My boyfriend got me interested in that,” she said of Blanco. “Just going out in the garden and picking things to cook with. It sounds silly and trivial, but as you get older, you realize it’s good to just keep it simple and live simply.”

The Disney alum also shared one of her favorite dishes that she and her husband cook together, and opened up about how they share the food they create with friends and family.

“For example, one of the things I do is make a bunch of my favorite tamales and give them out to random friends,” Gomez said. “I’ll just do it one day, and it’s a long process, but it’s a lot of fun. I’ll listen to music, have a drink, make tamales, and give them out to my friends.”

Allen J. Schaven/Los Angeles Times/Getty

Gomez and Blanco attended a Los Angeles Lakers game in January 2024.

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Food has played a key role in their relationship since the beginning. In March, Blanco Wide Open: A Cookbook for Friends — Gomez revealed her favorite dish that she often cooks for her.

“She loves steak, so anything with steak in it. And I also brought her soup yesterday. It’s not in my book, but she loves soup,” Blanco revealed at the time. “So, she was filming a show yesterday, so I made her a little soup and brought it over.”

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 a countertop filled with veggies, meat and other foods in pans covered in aluminum foil.

of There’s been a lot of 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 pair had already been dating six months before making it official.

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