Selena Gomez accused of fraud by investors who put $1.2M into her mental health app
Wondermind executives kept the company’s collapse a secret.
Selena Gomez by Getty/Chad Salvador.
- Investors sued Selena Gomez, Mandy Teefey, Daniella Pierson, and Wondermind over their allegedly failed $1.2 million investment.
- The lawsuit alleges Wondermind overstated partnerships, leadership, resources, and app plans that never materialized.
- Investors say Gomez failed to promote the start-up despite a marketing role tied to her 500 million followers.
- The case could damage celebrity-backed startups by raising scrutiny of investor promises and founder accountability.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Selena Gomez and her mental health start-up, Wondermind, is being sued by investors after she allegedly failed to deliver on her promises.
Pop star Selena Gomez is facing legal action after allegedly failing to use her celebrity and social media fame to promote her mental health startup, which received a nearly $1.2 million investment.
Gomez, along with her mother, Mandy Teefey, the CEO of Wondermind, allegedly lied to investors about the company’s viability, claiming it had the necessary infrastructure, leadership, and resources to launch.
Alongside that, investors were told by Wondermind and the accused that Gomez, “one of the most famous women on Earth,” would be acting as head of marketing, using her social media following to promote the start-up, according to the lawsuit.
Gomez has a combined social media following of 500 million.
Wondermind claimed it had secured employer partnerships with JPMorgan and Fidelity, and that advertising deals, celebrity cover stories, and a “groundbreaking app” were being forged.
However, lawyers alleged that “the partnerships did not exist. The initiatives never materialized. The app was never built,” and the company “quietly collapsed.”
Furthermore, Gomez claimed to have signed a contract that made her responsible for marketing the product using her fame and social media following.
The alleged victims only found out about the company's collapse in 2025, when The Cut investigated Wondermind and exposed what Gomez, Teefey, and other members of the startup were doing behind closed doors.
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Alongside Gomez ignoring contractual obligations, The Cut unearthed the “utter disarray at the company” and detailed workplace negligence like not paying its employees and vendors on time, and an executive power struggle between Teefey and co-CEO Daniella Pierson.
The article details Teefey’s “substance abuse disorder” and her “gross mismanagement of the company,” according to the lawsuit.
Teefey’s disorder allegedly “impeded her capacity to administer the company.”
Gomez apparently neglected her role in Wondermind by distancing herself from the company, due to long-standing tensions between herself and her Mother.
The Cut seemed to dissect the claims Wondermind made and, in the eyes of the investor’s lawyers, demonstrated that the start-up was in a “state of financial calamity” and showed that the claims that the company would be lucrative “were a fiction.”
Not only did Wondermind executives exaggerate the status of the company and its likelihood of success, but it's also alleged that Pierson misappropriated investor funds.
Pierson allegedly used investors' money to fund her “lavish lifestyle,” including a $60,000 rental apartment in New York.
Pierson, a Colombian-American entrepreneur, was called out in a Forbes exposé, which claims that revenue from her initial startup dropped from $40 million in 2021 to under $4 million in recent years.
As for Gomez’s mother, the lawsuit alleges that Teefey knew the business was going under and allowed the pop star to invest $8 million of her billion-dollar net worth to keep the company afloat.
Investors are accusing Wondermind and its executives of common law fraud, breach of contract, and other claims.
The victims are suing Gomez, Teefey, Pierson, and Wondermind in an attempt to annul the contract, recoup their investment money ($1.2 million), and seek damages on top of the money they are allegedly owed.
