Selena Gomez is facing legal trouble as investors in her mental health startup Wondermind sue her for fraud.
In a Thursday lawsuit reviewed by TheWrap, Gomez and her mother, Mandy Teefey, are being sued for allegedly defrauding Wondermind investors of around $1.2 million. The suit claims that the leadership behind the mental health startup — Gomez, Teefey and co-founder Daniella Pierson are all defendants — made a number of false representations to investors, chief among them being that the “Only Murders in the Building” star would be “intimately involved” in the startup.
“Gomez purported to sign a contract obligating her to perform and then ignored it,” the lawsuit read. “The partnerships did not exist. The initiatives never materialized. The app was never built. And 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.”
Gomez, Teefey and Pierson launded Wondermind back in 2021 as “a space to work it all out every day with candid conversations, physical tools, daily content, and a supportive community.” Investors did not learn about management issues or struggles – like employees not being paid on time and Teefey allegedly doing drugs at the office – until The Cut wrote an article about the startup’s working conditions last year.
That was not the only bad press the beleaguered startup faced. The lawsuit also pointed to an August 2025 Forbes article that reported Teefey pushed Pierson out of the company in 2023 as tensions between the two arose. The latter’s spokesperson later said they “would not characterize it as ‘pushed out.’”
“The Forbes article also reported critically on Pierson’s public claims that The Newsette is worth over $200 million, suggesting that these claims were contradicted by The Newsette’s own internal records,” the suit added.
It added: “Given what the Company characterized as Pierson’s significant business experience, including leading The Newsette, the Company represented that Pierson would exercise primary managerial control over Wondermind’s business operations and strategy, and that Teefey – who did not have this expertise – would lead its creative projects.”
Gomez was candid about her own mental health when she gave a 2021 interview to Entrepreneur about Wondermind. She credited her mom for giving her the confidence to create the startup in the first place.
“Something I’ve always tried to do in my career is make sure I lend my voice to places where it matters,” Gomez said. “And I have to give my mom credit for that because she taught me everything.”
