Selena Gomez seeks to dismiss ‘absurd’ lawsuit over mental health startup

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Pop star Selena Gomez is asking a federal judge to dismiss fraud claims against her after she was accused in a lawsuit by investors who say she failed to fulfil her duties to build and promote her mental health startup.

Earlier this month, Gomez and her mother, Mandy Teefey, were accused of allegedly deceiving investors of their mental health startup Wondermind to continue funding the company, according to legal documents obtained and viewed by Global News.

In a motion filed Wednesday in Delaware, viewed by NBC News, People and Rolling Stone, Gomez’s lawyers asked a judge to dismiss the 34-year-old singer from the lawsuit and said she should have never been dragged into the case in the first place.

Click to play video: 'Selena Gomez and her mother sued for fraud'


Selena Gomez and her mother sued for fraud

Global News has not independently viewed the filing.

Gomez’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, shared a statement with Rolling Stone, calling the claims against her “completely meritless if not frivolous.”

“The notion that Selena engaged in ‘fraud’ or any other wrongdoing is absurd—and in addition to filing our motion we are exploring other avenues of relief for Ms. Gomez including sanctions against plaintiffs for improperly including her,” he added.

Global News has reached out to Rosengart for further comment, but has not received a response.

In the motion, the singer’s lawyers reportedly said that the plaintiffs’ “vague, generalized, and contradictory allegations concerning Selena Gomez demonstrate that Ms. Gomez could not possible have engaged in any ‘fraud’ (she did not), is not liable to Plaintiffs (she is not) and, as a matter of law, must be dismissed from the lawsuit.”

The filing also reportedly states that Gomez “did not communicate with Plaintiffs, was not involved in Wondermind, Inc.’s (the ‘Company’) securities offerings, and was not in a position to control the acts and communications of the Company.”

Wondermind was co-founded by Gomez, Teefey and Daniella Pierson in November 2021 and claims to share “doable ways to put your mental fitness first every day,” according to the website.

The motion says that Teefey and Pierson handled management as Wondermind’s co-CEOs and board members and that Gomez was retained “as a consultant and conferred on her title of Chief Impact Officer,” NBC News reports.

In the motion to dismiss, Gomez’s legal team reportedly said that while the Wizards of Waverly Place actor “agreed to support her mother Mandy Teefey” and invested in Wondermind, she “never agreed to and did not mange” the company.

The lawsuit filed earlier this month accuses Wondermind and the founders of falsely representing the company’s “infrastructure, leadership, and resources necessary for the Company to launch into a profitable, one-of-its-kind mental health and wellness platform.”

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The suit also claims that the defendants told the plaintiff’s three things, including that Gomez would be “actively building the Company as its head of marketing,” that Pierson was “a $200 million executive whose prior businesses generated $40 million a year and who had already secured institutional employer partnerships with JPMorgan and Fidelity,” and that a “full slate of revenue-generating initiatives, including advertising deals, celebrity cover stories, and a groundbreaking app, were already underway.”

“Gomez purported to sign a contract obligating her to perform and then ignored it. The partnerships did not exist. The initiatives never materialized. The app was never built,” the legal documents allege.

It also claims that while Wondermind “quietly collapsed,” the founders allegedly did not say “a word to the investors whose money was funding the collapse.”

The investors allegedly learned about the news from an online article published in September 2025 by The Cut, titled “What Happened at Wondermind?”

The investors claim they put US$1.2 million into Wondermind and are now accusing the company of securities fraud, common law fraud and breach of contract.

The lawsuit also shares allegations of investors being given updates that they claim were misleading or false.

The investors are seeking rescission of their investments in Wondermind, damages, costs and lawyers’ fees.

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