Demi Lovato is getting candid about her decades-long bond with Selena Gomez, telling Elle that their friendship has moved through “different chapters” since they met as kids on Barney. The interview landed the same day the pair officially reunited on camera for a Rare Beauty campaign that recreates some of their most beloved early moments together. Delena fans, this one is for you.
The reunion fans have been waiting for
According to Variety, Gomez and Lovato teamed up for Rare Beauty’s “Still Making Each Other Blush” campaign, announced October 28, 2026. The campaign pulls straight from the nostalgia vault, recreating moments from their 2009 Disney Channel film Princess Protection Program along with their early YouTube videos together.
In one campaign image, Variety reported, the duo recreates the Princess Protection Program poster in updated versions of the blue and yellow gowns their characters wore. It is a very specific kind of throwback, and it absolutely works.
Then there are the vlogs. Just Jared reported that the campaign includes a recreation of the pair’s 2008 YouTube vlogs, 18 years later. Rare Beauty’s official Instagram leaned all the way in, captioning the post “YO YO YO” and noting, “18 years later, Delena is back with a vlog,” per Just Jared. If you were online in 2008, you probably just heard that greeting in their voices.
The campaign also comes with something to buy, naturally. Variety reported that it introduces the limited-edition “Delena” Soft Pinch Liquid Blush Bundle, named after the fan-coined nickname for the childhood friends. The $50 bundle includes two shades: Hope, a nude mauve favored by Gomez, and Virtue, a beige peach favored by Lovato. A Soft Pinch Blush Brush rounds it out, and according to Variety, the set is available exclusively on Rare Beauty’s website.
Demi on the ups and downs
The heart of the story, though, is what Lovato had to say. In her Elle interview, published October 28, 2026, she reflected on how the friendship has shifted over the years, as reported by E! News and Billboard.
“We’ve been friends since we were 7 years old when we met on Barney,” Lovato told Elle. “There have been different chapters throughout our lives, and naturally, friends are in each other’s lives heavily at times, and then sometimes you’re not in constant communication.”
It is a refreshingly grown-up take. Anyone who has kept a childhood friend into their thirties knows the rhythm she is describing. Some years you talk every day. Some years you send a heart emoji on their birthday and call it even.
Lovato also sounded happy about where things stand now. “It’s really great to be in a place today where we can collaborate on things, but also just hang out and spend time together,” she said, per E! News.
How Delena found their way back
Their history runs deep. According to Billboard, Gomez and Lovato first met as children on Barney & Friends and have known each other for nearly 25 years. They went on to co-star in Princess Protection Program in 2009, and around the same era started posting the YouTube vlogs that fans still quote today.
The road wasn’t always smooth. The friendship publicly fractured over the years, and in a past interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Lovato said the two “weren’t friends,” while making clear she still loved Gomez.
The thaw became more visible in 2026. On March 3, Lovato spoke warmly about Gomez on the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast, saying she was “grateful” for their friendship.
A month later came the big moment. E! News reported that Gomez attended the opening night of Lovato’s “It’s Not That Deep” tour in Florida in April, the first time the Disney Channel alums had publicly reunited in nearly a decade. According to E! News, that concert is what set the Rare Beauty campaign in motion, making the blush launch the pair’s second public reunion of the year.
So in the span of a few months, they went from a podcast shoutout to a concert hug to matching princess gowns and a co-branded blush. That is a pretty great glow-up for any friendship.
What it all means now
The takeaway from Lovato’s comments is that nobody needs to pretend the quiet years didn’t happen. She framed the distance as something natural rather than dramatic, and the reunion as something both of them clearly wanted.
For fans who grew up on those grainy webcam videos, seeing the two of them back together with a “YO YO YO” is a genuinely sweet full-circle moment. And if the vibe in the campaign is anything to go by, Delena are once again in a chapter where they are very much in each other’s lives.
