The Selena Gomez Makeup Mishap That Gave Donald Trump Vibes

Many people have gradually started giving self-tanners a wide berth ever since the product became practically synonymous with Former President Donald Trump, who has suffered plenty of very public fake tan fails over the years. Singer and actor Selena Gomez, however, was still brave enough to apply some self-tanner before the 2018 Met Gala — a move she regrets to this day. Gomez can certainly attest to the sneaky ways fake tan can make you appear more orange than you'd like to be, and while walking the red carpet in 2018, while wearing a white gown no less, Gomez's skin tone temporarily made us question whether she might be distantly related to Trump.

The Disney alum opened up about her self-tanning mishap while sharing skincare and makeup tips with fans in a video for Vogue, telling viewers that she and her team decided her complexion just needed a little bit of a glow. "So [I] put on some of this tanning lotion and it looked really beautiful and very even," Gomez recalled. "As the evening kept going on, it was getting a little darker and darker and I didn't notice it." When the singer finally had a moment to sit down and look at some of her pictures, horror washed over her when she noticed her orange complexion. "I was like: 'This is going to be terrible because I'm going to get eaten alive about this," Gomez admitted.

And indeed, the internet definitely spotted it too, with many users taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to discuss the "Only Murders in the Building" star's self-tan fail. "Someone clearly got the settings wrong on the tanning bed," one critic wrote alongside a gif from "Family Guy" of a painfully sunburnt Stewie Griffin, while another added, "Selena got too much bronzer on the top half of her body. Or her legs need some sun." 

Unlike Donald Trump, who hasn't handled criticism of his orange complexion very well in the past, Selena Gomez opened up about her tanning mishap and managed to make good fun of the whole ordeal. After realizing her face and body had turned an alarming shade of orange during the 2018 Met Gala, the former child star asked someone on her security team to film her running to her car. She then posted the video to Instagram, captioning it, "Me when I saw my pictures from MET [shrug emoji]." Some didn't get the joke and thought that Gomez was hinting that she hated how she looked at the glitzy event, but an insider quickly set the record straight, clarifying to People, "In person, she honestly felt great but not everything looks the same as it does in person." They added that the actor's Instagram post was a witty way of giving internet trolls the finger.

Gomez truly handled the whole thing like a champ, unlike Trump, who previously declared a photograph clearly showing off his disastrous makeup (or was it false tan gone wrong?) as "fake news." The former president took to X in 2020 to clap back at criticism after a pic displaying a white ring around his face, which was made visible by a strong breeze blowing back his hair, went viral. "This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!" Trump wrote at the time. The photographer who captured the image vowed that it hadn't been tampered with. 

Additionally, the divisive politician also blamed his bizarrely orange transformation on energy efficient light bulbs. While speaking at a small-business roundtable in 2019, Trump argued, "It gives you an orange look. I don't want an orange look," (via The Independent). Not only did Gomez handle her self-tan disaster admirably, she also undeniably managed to pull off the look much better than he did.