Selena Gomez Clapped Back at 'The Good Fight' for Its "Tasteless" Transplant Joke

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After her fans flooded the internet with upset tweets about a joke made on Paramount Plus' The Good Fight regarding Selena Gomez's 2017 kidney transplant, Gomez herself decided to speak on the matter. On August 3rd, Gomez tweeted, "I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing but sadly it has apparently."

She continued, "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."

The scene that spurred the flux of "respect Selena Gomez" tweets happened during a recent Good Fight episode in which the show's characters discuss potential jokes to write into a television executive's monologue that could be "cancelable"—necrophilia, autism, and Gomez's kidney transplant were all put on the chopping block.

But, according to a source close to the production, who spoke to Variety, the bit of dialogue has been taken out of context.

"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 canceled for telling a bad joke," the source said. "The reference is that Selena Gomez's transplant is not something you can joke about."

In November 2020, Peacock's revival of Saved by the Bell also faced scrutiny for making a reoccurring joke about Gomez's transplant. Characters talked about the identity of her donor in one scene and then graffiti that reads "Does Selena Gomez even have a kidney?" appeared in another. Peacock ultimately removed the joke from the episode.

Gomez responded to her own tweet and asked that followers sign up to become organ donors.

For real this time: Selena Gomez's organ transplant shouldn't be talked about in a joking way. Okay? Okay.