Pop star Selena Gomez is being accused of fraud by investors who claim she failed to fulfill promises to use her global popularity and social media audience to promote a mental health startup that shut down last year.
The startup Wondermind Global Inc., according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware federal court, was valued at $95 million when it raised funds from investors in 2022 to develop products, including a mobile app. Gomez, one of the company’s founders, held the positions of “chief impact officer” and head of marketing. However, as five investors allege in the lawsuit, Wondermind misled them about its prospects and never developed the promised products or began generating revenue.
Investors claim that Gomez, partly due to “ongoing personal issues with her mother” Mandy Teefey, ignored her contractual obligations to the company. Teefey was a co-founder and co-executive director of the startup. “The initiatives were never implemented. The app was never created. And for three years, as the company quietly collapsed, none of its founders, executives, or directors said a word to investors,” the investors’ attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
Founding and funding of Wondermind
Selena Gomez founded Wondermind in 2021 with her mother and Daniella Pierson, the founder of the pop culture newsletter Newsette. The company aimed to capitalize on public interest in mindfulness, focusing on the concept of “mental fitness” and promoting practices to support mental health, similar to how people go to gyms to maintain physical fitness. Gomez, Teefey, and Pierson, all named as defendants in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An email to Wondermind also went unanswered.
During an initial funding round in 2022, the company raised $5 million from a venture fund of tennis legend Serena Williams, as well as leading venture firms Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. This round included $1.2 million invested by the five individuals who filed the lawsuit, including former Allergan CEO Brent Saunders.
Accusations of false statements and concealment of information
According to the lawsuit, investors were attracted by the promise that Wondermind could reach over 500 million people through Gomez’s social media. “The plaintiffs understood that the value of Wondermind as a young company largely lay in Gomez’s involvement, particularly in her ability to promote the company among her already established, significant, and loyal subscriber audience,” the investors noted in the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, the company falsely claimed to have partnerships with corporate employers such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Fidelity, as well as launched a series of “revenue-generating initiatives,” including advertising deals, celebrity cover materials for magazines, and the development of an “innovative app.” Investors said they learned about the company’s financial difficulties from an article published by The Cut in September 2025. The lawsuit states that the article reported on “Gomez’s complete failure to fulfill her obligations to the company and, indeed, her active efforts to distance herself from it.” The plaintiffs accused the defendants of concealing “the company’s operational, financial, and managerial problems,” adding that they were only minority investors with “limited rights to obtain information.” The investors are now seeking the return of their invested funds through the court.
Source: Bloomberg
