Selena Gomez's Mental Health Startup Is In Serious Trouble

Several investors in Selena Gomez’s mental health startup Wondermind are suing the singer, claiming that they were misled about the company’s success and her involvement in it. According to CNN, five investors said in the lawsuit that they put in $1.2 million in 2022, expecting Gomez to leverage her star power and massive social media following to build up the company. Instead, “for three years, while the Company quietly collapsed around them, not one of its founders, officers, or directors said a word to the investors whose money was funding the collapse,” the lawsuit alleged.

Wondermind launched in 2021, with Gomez listed as co-founder, “chief impact officer,” and head of marketing. Her mother, Mandy Teefey, is the other co-founder and CEO. The platform, which includes podcasts, newsletters, and worksheets, was designed to give users “easy, doable ways to put your mental fitness first every day,” according to the website. According to the lawsuit, Gomez and Teefey, along with their former business partner, Daniella Pierson, made big promises of corporate partnerships with companies like JPMorgan as well as “advertising deals, celebrity cover stories, and a groundbreaking app.”

But those “partnerships did not exist. The initiatives never materialized. The app was never built,” the investors alleged. Investors found out about the company’s troubles in an expose of Wondermind published by The Cut in 2025. The article paints a portrait of a company in turmoil, with Teefey iill-equipped to run a major company and allegedly intoxicated during work hours. Tensions between mother and daughter were also rife. “I will say this with the utmost certainty — no doubt, hesitation in my mind,” said one former employee. “Selena knew her mother was not well enough to be running that company.”

Gomez and Teefey have long had a difficult relationship. Teefey was previously her daughter’s manager but was let go from that position as she became more famous. Teefey also had a history of talking to the press about Gomez’s personal and professional life, which led to a period of estrangement. The Cut describes Wondermind as Teefey’s idea and Gomez’s involvement as “chief impact officer”, whatever that means, as a way to provide “degree of built-in security.”

Selena’s involvement seems to have been minimal, with Teefey becoming sole CEO after Pierson was fired. One staffer described the company as “a way for Selena to keep Mandy out of her orbit.” Soon, Teefey became more unreliable. “Mandy would disappear for weeks,” said one former employee. “She wouldn’t respond at all.” The company, once valued at $100 million, was soon in a financial mess. According to one staffer, Teefey said she and Gomez had contributed $8 million of their own money and that she was struggling to secure series-B funding. Employees weren’t being paid of time and were losing their health insurance.

Both the lawsuit and the article by The Cut portray Wondermind as a folly of ego, mismanagement, and familial pain that ruined a good idea. Teefey seemed utterly unqualified to be the CEO of a major company, and Gomez seems to have avoided all responsibility related to a company that still bears her name and image in all of its marketing. To quote the piece, “The vast majority of staff members who spoke with me say they believe Gomez knew her mother did not have the capacity to run the company and shares blame for the resulting effects on their lives. Some have developed new or worsened panic disorders and depression that they attribute to both Teefey’s behavior and the business’s instability.”

It seems they made big promises to investors that they never kept. And yes, it’s so depressing that mental health care and awareness has to be packaged into a business with high profit margins so that rich losers will care about it. This wasn’t a charity. It was a tech-bro startup with delusions of grandeur. Not everything has to be the next Theranos, guys.