Gomez puts fans on priority list despite mistakes

"If there was any way I could come out of my shell in terms of the work I'd been doing‚ this was the film that was going to do it."

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LONDON: Stunning Disney star Selena Gomez was the ultimate strait-laced celebrity and the perfect match for her clean-cut former boyfriend Justin Bieber.

But since the goody-two-shoes pair split for a second time in January, Justin’s squeaky-clean image has gone down the drain — and with her raunchy new film Spring Breakers, it seemed Selena was following his lead reported the Sun.

For the 18-certificate movie features drugs, knives, guns, swearing and sex, making it far from suitable for her usual schoolgirl fans.

According to the USA Today newspaper, it includes “casual sex and rampant nudity” while the Los Angeles Times called it “lewd”.

Selena, 20, says: “If there was any way I could come out of my shell in terms of the work I’d been doing, this was the film that was going to do it.”

In the movie, Selena stars with Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine as four college girls who rob a fast food restaurant to pay for their spring break. She says: “This movie is something we all wanted to do as actresses.

“We weren’t worried about the subject matter or how we might be perceived. For me, it was the perfect baby step into playing more serious adult roles but I was surrounded by the best girls who protected me and made me feel safe.”

And while Justin’s recent UK shows were marred by his stroppy behaviour to fans and photographers, Selena — who first rose to fame in the Disney kids’ show Wizards Of Waverly Place — has clearly not entirely turned her back on her good-girl image.

She admits she had no real-life experience of the outrageous behaviour of the characters in the film and says her mum Mandy would never have allowed her to indulge in the film’s drunken beach parties.

Selena, who started acting aged nine in TV’s Barney & Friends, adds: “I’m not even a big party girl who wants to stay out until six in the morning. I have a natural instinct not to go overboard. That’s not because I’m worried about bad publicity but just because I think you can have a good time and not lose control, just because some other people might like to do that.

“People need to decide for themselves how far to test their limits and make up their minds.

“We all make mistakes and we have to learn from them, and that’s what growing up is all about.

“I think my fans trust me and know me to a certain extent and there’s also something to my not wanting to disappoint them.”

In Spring Breakers, her character Faith does, at least, duck out of the debauchery first. But Selena is aware that her young fans need to know that the film, out on April 5, will not be suitable for them. She says: “It obviously isn’t a film geared towards young teenagers and I’ve kind of tried to tell parents they should be aware this is not like a Disney TV series.

“But I’m trying to do the best I can to challenge myself and take me out of my own comfort zone. That’s something all young people go through in life and there’s no point in shying away from that fact.”

Two of Selena’s high-profile relationships have now broken up.

First she dated Twilight star Taylor Lautner, then she was Justin Bieber’s on-off girlfriend for nearly two years before they split in January. Being famous has made her more cautious about potential boyfriends and she says that for now she is happy to be single.

She adds: “It makes you more wary sometimes about meeting people because you don’t know whether they want to get close to you because of what you do or because they really like your company and just want to hang out with you.

“I’m a big romantic and I want to be very open and trusting but you need to protect yourself. I’d love to have a great boyfriend but I’m not really looking for one.”

Texan Selena is currently at work on her fourth album with her band Selena Gomez & The Scene and has a world tour scheduled for later this year.

She says: “I feel like I’ve done a lot in my life, even if I didn’t go to college and I didn’t have the usual kind of life as a teenager.

“But I don’t feel I’ve been overly insulated from the real world.

“I can be very independent at times and not just always think about work and performing.”