Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco: I Said I Loved You First review – besotted but bland
- Alexis Petridis
- Mar 22, 2025
- 2 min read
The betrothed pop star and pop producer’s PDA pulls in big names including Charli xcx and Gracie Abrams, but it’s strangely anonymous for such a personal project
ISaid I Love You First makes few bones about its raison d’etre. It comes with cover art that features the betrothed Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco snuggling in bed, the photograph apparently shot through a keyhole, as if its prospective audience is spying on an intimate moment. Should you not get the gist, there’s an accompanying explanation about how it celebrates the pop star and pop uber-producer’s “love story”, how it came together “organically” thanks to the comfort between them, and “authentically reflects their experiences”.
Whether that compels you or sends you running in the opposite direction screaming in horror is doubtless a matter of personal taste. It depends on how you feel about public displays of affection, particularly those designed to make the couple in question money, an idea that history suggests is fraught with risk. Over the years, a host of legendary pop names have chosen to commemorate their love together in song – Sonny and Cher, Kylie and Jason, Nas and Kelis, not to mention Katie Price and Peter Andre – only to watch their relationships crash and burn. Gomez and Blanco, who produced Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream, Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger and Rihanna’s Diamonds among other 2010s classics, even gave Interview magazine the sort of Hello! magazine exclusive in which a Coronation Street star flashes their engagement ring.
Still, you can see why they might have done it. For one thing, the first flush of romance can make you lose your head, blind to the idea that your love might give anyone outside your bubble the ick. You could mock passing that kind of behaviour off as “art that authentically reflects their experiences”, but then look at John Lennon and Yoko Ono favouring the world with a photo of themselves in the buff. And we live in an era where pop fandom seems predicated on parsing every lyric for intimations about their idol’s personal life – something Gomez, the most-followed woman on Instagram, knows well. It’s indescribably reductive, but if fans are intent on viewing your music as a footnote to your private life, then why not give them what they want?
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