Selena Gomez talks about moving past emotional abuse

Selena Gomez is talking about her her on-again, off-again relationship with ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber, saying she experienced emotional abuse during the time they were together.

In an interview with NPR, the singer discussed her ups and downs with Bieber, and their final goodbye in March 2018.

“I’ve found the strength in it,” she said. “It’s dangerous to stay in a victim mentality. And I’m not being disrespectful, I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse.”

When asked if she specifically meant “emotional abuse,” Gomez responded, “Yes.”

She continued: “I had to find a way to understand it as an adult. And I had to understand the choices I was making. As much as I definitely don’t want to spend the rest of my life talking about this, I am really proud that I can say I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt and I’ve found a way to just walk through it with as much grace as possible.”

CNN has reached out to Bieber’s representative for comment.

Gomez revealed that her song “Lose You to Love Me,” was about the pain of getting over their breakup.

“I’m very proud of it,” she said of the song. “It has a different meaning to me now from when I wrote it. I felt I didn’t get a respectful closure, and I had accepted that, but I know I needed some way to just say a few things that I wish I had said.”

But it wasn’t all bad with Bieber.

“It’s not a hateful song; it’s a song that is saying — I had something beautiful and I would never deny that it wasn’t that,” Gomez added. “It was very difficult and I’m happy it’s over. And I felt like this was a great way to just say, you know, it’s done, and I understand that, and I respect that, and now here I am stepping into a whole other chapter.”

Gomez and Bieber were first linked in 2011.

Bieber went on to marry Hailey Baldwin in Sept. 2018.

Gomez says her new album, “Rare,” is in response to people trying to control the story of her life.

“The reason why I’ve become so vocal about the trials and tribulations of my life is because people were already going to narrate that for me,” she said. “I wasn’t going to have a choice because of how fast everything moves now. Most of the time, yes, it’s not true, or it’s an embellished version of what the truth is. I want to be able to tell my story the way that I want to tell it.”