{"id":6139,"date":"2026-08-31T09:58:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T09:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=6139"},"modified":"2026-08-31T09:58:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T09:58:19","slug":"selena-gomez-asks-judge-to-dismiss-absurd-fraud-claims-over-mental-health-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=6139","title":{"rendered":"Selena Gomez asks judge to dismiss \u2018absurd\u2019 fraud claims over mental health startup"},"content":{"rendered":"
The motion asks the judge to dismiss all four claims brought against Selena Gomez with prejudice.Taylor Hill \/ FilmMagic via Getty Images file<\/figcaption>Aug. 27, 2026, 12:13 PM EDT\u00a0\/\u00a0Updated\u00a0Aug. 27, 2026, 12:21 PM EDT<\/p>\n

Selena Gomez is fighting back against a federal lawsuit alleging she defrauded investors in Wondermind, the mental <a href="https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=6121" title="African Medicine Day 2026: Advancing Health<\/a> for All”>health<\/a> startup she co-founded with her mother<\/p>\n

In a motion filed Wednesday in federal court in Delaware, Gomez\u2019s lawyers asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by investors in Wondermind, who allege they were misled into investing nearly $1.2 million in the 2021 startup after they were given false promises about the company\u2019s leadership, re<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, alleging common-law fraud, breach of contract and securities fraud, names Gomez, her mother, Mandy Teefey, and their former business partner, Daniella Pierson<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion that Selena engaged in \u2018fraud\u2019 or any other wrongdoing is absurd \u2014 and in addition to filing our motion we are exploring other avenues of relief for Ms. Gomez including sanctions against plaintiffs for improperly including her,\u201d Mathew S. Rosengart, an attorney for Gomez, said in a statement<\/p>\n

Wondermind and Teefey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pierson, who hasdenied any wrongdoing, also did not respond to a request for comment<\/p>\n

According to the complaint \u2014 filed Aug. 13 by Wondermind SRS 44 LLC and Bespoke Wondermind SPV I LLC, limited liability companies that invested in the startup \u2014 the three founders told investors the sprawling \u201cmental fitness\u201d company would include a phone app, advertising deals and celebrity-driven content, with Gomez \u201cintimately involved\u201d as head of marketing<\/p>\n

Instead, the complaint alleges, many of those initiatives never happened, and investors received false updates and were kept in the dark about Wondermind\u2019s mismanage<\/a>ment and descent into financial turmoil. It alleges investors became aware of the company\u2019s disarray after two bombshell stories<\/p>\n

Gomez\u2019s attorneys, however, argue in the motion that the lawsuit does not specify any false statements Gomez made personally to investors and that she was not even a member of the board. The motion added that Gomez never agreed to manage Wondermind and did not hold a minority stake in the company<\/p>\n

The \u201cvague, generalized, and contradictory allegations concerning Selena Gomez demonstrate that Ms. Gomez could not possibly have engaged in any \u2018fraud\u2019 (she did not), is not liable to Plaintiffs (she is not) and, as a matter of law, must be dismissed from this lawsuit,\u201d the motion says<\/p>\n

The motion says that Teefey and Pierson handled management as Wondermind\u2019s co-CEOs and board members and that Gomez was retained \u201cas a consultant and conferred on her title of Chief Impact Officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

It says one of the few communications cited in the lawsuit that directly involved Gomez was a December 2022 email from Pierson discussing Wondermind\u2019s growth. Gomez was copied on the email, according to the court filings, and her lawyers argue that there is no allegation she knew anything in it was false<\/p>\n

The motion asks the judge to dismiss all four claims brought against Gomez with prejudice<\/p>\n

Rosengart said in a statement that the \u201cmotion to dismiss demonstrates that plaintiffs never should have dragged Selena Gomez into this case as the claims against her are completely meritless if not frivolous.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement this month, Pierson categorically denied the allegations and said she \u201cwelcomes the opportunity to present concrete documentation and financial records that establish the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, she has never used investor funds for personal expenses. Quite the opposite: Daniella invested her own money into the business and did not draw a salary from the company,\u201d the statement said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Selena Gomez is fighting back against a federal lawsuit alleging she defrauded investors in Wondermind, the mental health startup she co-founded with her mother<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1167,1348,972,761,971],"class_list":["post-6139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-asks","tag-dismiss","tag-gomez","tag-judge","tag-selena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6140,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139\/revisions\/6140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}