Selena Gomez slams ‘tasteless’ kidney transplant joke on ‘The Good Fight’

Selena Gomez’s 2017 kidney transplant continues to be a hot topic of conversation, at least when it comes to television shows. And neither she nor her fans, are here for it.

In a recent episode of The Good Fight (a spinoff of The Good Wife, currently in its fifth season), three characters were discussing cancel culture and jokes that were off-limits. Actors Sarah Steele, Nyambi Nyambi and Ifádansi Rashad were throwing around topics that are too hot to joke about, including necrophilia, autism, and “Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant.”

The scene came up in reference to a larger plot point within the episode, when a comedy television executive (guest star Wayne Brady) asked one of the legal firm’s partners, Liz (Audra McDonald), to put together a sensitivity read for one of his clients.

As soon as fans caught wind of the Good Fight bit, they took to Twitter to defend the 29-year-old singer and actor, calling for jokes about her health history to stop. 

When will people stop doing this !!! RESPECT SELENA GOMEZ pic.twitter.com/QdLX2PUTYo

— me Lᴊ (@ikonictobi3) August 3, 2021

Eventually, all of the attention prompted Gomez herself to respond, via a statement on Twitter. “I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing but sadly it has apparently,” she wrote. “I hope in the next writer’s room when one of these tasteless jokes are presented it’s called out immediately and doesn’t make it on air.”

For those who need a refresher, Gomez had a kidney transplant in 2017 as a result of complications due to lupus. Her close friend Francia Raísa was the one who donated the kidney she needed.

After addressing the joke, the performer then gave a shout-out to those fans who backed her, and shared a link for people to sign up to be an organ donor. 

So far no one from the series or from the streaming service has responded at time of press, but an anonymous source close to production did speak to Variety after Twitter got ahold of the story.

“If you watch the episode in full, the reference to Selena Gomez is part of a discussion the characters are having about topics that are not okay to make fun of and the idea of cancel culture and being cancelled for telling a bad joke,” the source said. “The reference is that Selena Gomez’s transplant is not something you can joke about.”

As many fans noted, this isn’t the first time a TV series has joked or commented on Gomez’s medical history. During the first season of Peacock’s rebooted Saved By The Bell series, there’s a scene in the sixth episode in which two students guess as to the identity of Gomez’s donor (even though Selena told us herself that Raísa was her donor in 2017).

Peacock, NBCUniversal and executive producers for the show then apologized for the jokes and edited the scene out for future viewers. 

“We apologize. It was never our intention to make light of Selena’s health,” they said in a statement at the time. “We have been in touch with her team and will be making a donation to her charity, The Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC.”

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