Full disclosure: I’m not a Selena Gomez person. Not that I have anything against her; I just don’t engage with her work or celebrity in my day-to-day life. As a food editor though, there are a few things I know about her. One, she loves horchata—it was the inspiration for her shockingly tasty personalized Oreos that launched a few months back. And two, she really loves pickles, most recently made apparent by her birthday cake this year.
Selena Gomez Shared a Birthday Photo (& I Can’t Get Over What’s on Her Cake)
How trendy
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Published Jul 23, 2025
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She shared a photo to Instagram on July 22 of her holding a green cake topped with nine pickle-shaped candles. “5 years ago today on my birthday,” the caption reads, “we launched the Rare Impact Fund with a simple goal: to help more young people around the world feel seen, supported and cared for. Mental health has always been deeply personal to me, and I wanted to build something that could create lasting change. Since then, thanks to your support, we’ve reached over 2 million young people and supported 30 incredible organizations around the globe.”
That’s all well and good, and kudos to her! But I can’t unsee the food trends in this photo. First of all, that’s a vintage cake, complete with Lambeth-style piped frosting that gives Marie Antoinette-level opulence. These over-the-top confections completely took over my TikTok feed in 2023 with their sugar pearls, glacé cherries, edible sparkles and a ton of buttercream.
Secondly, her pickle obsession took over TikTok on its own back in 2021. Not only does she dip her Tabasco-drizzled popcorn in pickle juice, but she also crowns her Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with pickle chips. (Yes, I tried it. It wasn’t necessarily the flavor that was bad, but rather the conflicting textures of the chalky, gritty peanut butter filling and the wet, crunchy pickle.)
With the crunchy snack in the midst of its own renaissance, pickle fans are their pickliest selves as of late, so I’m not surprised her love of them hasn’t waned over the years. A few months ago, she shared her love for shaved ice doused in pickle brine and topped with chopped pickles on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. She even put her hubby, Benny Blanco, on, as he shared a recipe for watermelon pickle sandwiches to TikTok last summer.
I may not know a lot about Selena, but I know a true pickle person when I see one. And I respect her for it.
