Selena Gomez has vowed to fight a lawsuit alleging she and her mother rooked investors into sinking more than a million dollars into a mental wellness company they co-founded, even as the enterprise was imploding financially.
“The allegations that Selena Gomez engaged in any way whatsoever in any purported ‘fraud’ or other wrongdoing are completely meritless, both factually and legally,” her litigator, Mathew S. Rosengart, told People in a statement. “We will vigorously defend these false allegations and indeed are filing a motion to dismiss the baseless claims against her.”
On Thursday two companies, Wondermind SRS 44 LLC and Bespoke Wondermind LLC, sued parent company Wondermind Global, plus Gomez, mother MandyTeefey, and Daniella Pierson, who had by then left the company. The investors claim the three women “falsely represented” the infrastructure, leadership and resources of the startup, People reported, citing legal documents. The investors said that while they were busy sinking nearly $1.2 million into Wondermind, it “quietly collapsed around them” without their knowledge, until they read about the disarray in a September 2025 article in New York Magazine’s The Cut.
The “Only Murders in the Building” actress formed Wondermind in 2021, along with Teefey and Pierson, to make down-to-earth mental health information widely available via the website, podcasts, television shows and films, as The Cut described it. The trio raised $5 million in series-A funding in 2022 based on a company valuation of $100 million, yet by May 2025 they were struggling financially under Teefey’s stewardship, Forbes reported last May. Gomez has been public about her own mental health struggles and bipolar disorder diagnosis and has been recognized for her advocacy.
Many of the promised projects never materialized, The Cut reported, and employees told the outlet that Gomez did not appear to be very much involved, even as Teefey’s behavior became more and more erratic. Payroll faltered last March and April, rattling employees, and freelancers reported numerous payment delays, Forbes reported, noting that soon after its initial report, Wondermind laid off two-thirds of its 12-person staff, leaving four employees.
Gomez apparently stepped in to right the ship at that time and had already “invested millions of dollars over the years into Wondermind to support her mother and their shared passion for mental health,” a source told People after the payroll issue.
A survey by the Daily News on Sunday revealed that the most recent content visible on Wondermind’s website and social media accounts appears to be from last year or earlier, with two podcast series stopping in 2022 and 2023, and most articles dating back to the same years.
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