Update (1/10/23): Rolling Stone has confirmed Selena Gomez will play Linda Ronstadt in a biopic. Besides confirmation, no other details were available.
Update: On August 18, 2023, Selena Gomez shared a series of photos on her Instagram stories featuring Linda Ronstadt. One story was of a photo cover for her song “Blue Bayou.” Another story was a black-and-white photo of Ronstadt sitting at a counter. And the final one was a quote that read, “The smell of carpet in a hotel room is the same everywhere.” According to SFGate, it was a comment made by the icon when talking about how lonely life on the road was. And while this isn’t confirmation of Gomez taking on the role of the pop icon, it seems like Gomez is hinting at something to come.
Rumors swirling around the world wide web on Wednesday (July 12) are suggesting that singer and actress Selena Gomez is considering playing what would be the biggest role of her career.
According to veteran gossip columnist Roger Friedman at Showbiz411, Gomez is in talks to portray the 70s and 80s pop icon Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic. The outlet is reporting that James Keach, the producer behind the 2019 Ronstadt documentary The Sound of My Voice, has contacted Gomez about the role.
Ronstadt, who is of Mexican descent, has won 13 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. That same year, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama.
Some of the songs Ronstadt is best known for include “It’s So Easy,” “You’re No Good,” “Blue Bayou,” “Different Drum” and “Long Long Time” which was just featured on The Last of Us. In 1987, her album Canciones de Mi Padre, which featured traditional mariachi music, became a global hit and is still the best-selling, non-English language album ever to hit the U.S. charts.
In 2011, Ronstadt announced her retirement and revealed that she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which prevents her from singing anymore. “There’s nothing I can do about it except accept it,” Ronstadt told Remezcla in 2020. “I can still sing inside my head. I can sing in a very tiny voice. I can still sing inside my brain.”
Selena Gomez can currently be seen in the hit Hulu series Only Murders in the Building opposite Steve Martin and Martin Short. Her next film is the musical comedy Emilia Pérez, which Deadline described as a story about “an El Chapo-type fugitive” who attempts to evade law enforcement by having sex reassignment surgery.