Selena Gomez 's career has gone from strength to strength - but her life wasn't always easy. The 28-year-old made her big break into showbiz when she joined the cast of Barney & Friends, alongside fellow future Disney Channel star Demi Lovato at the age of 10.
Since then she's landed her own Disney series and movie spin-offs with The Wizards of Waverly Place, fronted her own band Selena Gomez & the Scene, starred in Hollywood movies and launched a highly successful solo career.
But the star came from a family that had financial struggles. Despite their own money issues, the family worked hard to help others by donating their time and belongings to charity.
Selena opened up as she posed for the cover of Vogue, saying: "I remember always being reminded that people had less than we did, and we didn’t have much.
“But I felt like we did because my mom was always doing a hundred million things just to make me happy, and we volunteered at soup kitchens on Thanksgiving; we went through my closet for Goodwill."
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The singer looked stunning on the cover, posing up in a fur-trimmed off-the-shoulder patterned top. The wind blew threw her dark dresses, tousling them ever so slightly and framing her face, which had perfectly applied make up.
In another image, she lounges by the pool in a patterned high-waisted bikini with a scarf on her head. Her eyes are closed as she sits back and soaks up the sun.
A third stunning image sees her standing on the opposite side of a pool, wearing a cute sleeveless dress with a belt wrapped around her waist.
In the interview, Selena also discussed her recent outspokenness about the fact that her paternal grandparents were undocumented.
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The Texas-born star said: "It wasn’t for any reason that I didn’t share it before. It’s just that as I started to see the world for what it is, all these things started to be like light bulbs going off."
Selena's grandparents came to Texas in a "back-of-the-truck situation", and it took them 17 years to get citizenship.
She added: "I remember that being such a huge deal. My grandpa was working construction, hiring hundreds of people, and still they were living on the edge, covering up how scary it was."
