Selena Gomez to Play Linda Ronstadt in Upcoming Biopic
The singer-actress teased the role Tuesday on Instagram Stories.
Selena Gomez and Linda Ronstadt
It’s so easy to see Selena Gomez in her next role. The singer/actress is set to portray Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic, according to the website of Great Eastern Music, a music publisher founded by John Boylan, the “Blue Bayou” singer’s manager.
“The long-rumored Linda Ronstadt biopic is now up-and-running. Selena Gomez is attached to play Linda,” reads the announcement on the website’s “Projects” page. “The two recently spent a few hours at Linda’s home discussing the project and getting to know each other.”
According to Great Eastern Music, the film will be produced by James Keach (who also produced the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and the Grammy-winning Ronstadt documentary The Sound of My Voice) along with Boylan. A title for the film was not revealed.
The “You’re No Good” singer also appeared to confirm the news on her Instagram account, sharing screenshots of Variety and Rolling Stone‘s reports that Gomez will be portraying her to her Stories. On her verified Facebook page, she also shared one of those reports, captioning it, “It all started with a simple dream.”
Billboard hadn’t heard back from reps for Boylan or Gomez at press time.
Fan speculation about Gomez’s new role kicked off Tuesday (Jan. 9) after the “Single Soon” singer shared a photo of Ronstadt’s book Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir to her Instagram Stories. An hour later, the Only Murders in the Building star announced on the same platform that she was going to take a little break from social media to focus on “what really matters,” with the message written over an image of boyfriend Benny Blanco.
It’s not hard to see why Gomez would be a good fit for the role. According to the star herself, she bears a resemblance to the 11-time Grammy winner. “I always used to get told that I look like her,” Gomez previously shared during a 2015 appearance on On Air With Ryan Seacrest. “And I started listening to her music because of that.”
Ronstadt announced her retirement in 2011, citing her Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, but later sharing that she actually has a brain disorder called progressive supranuclear palsy, which resembles Parkinson’s. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2016. During her decades-long career, she earned 10 top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, with “You’re No Good” reaching the summit in February 1975. Other top five hits include “Don’t Know Much” (featuring Aaron Neville, No. 2), “Somewhere Out There” (with James Ingram, No. 2), “When Will I Be Loved” (No. 2), “Blue Bayou” (No. 3), “It’s So Easy” (No. 5) and “Heat Wave/Love Is a Rose” (No. 5).
