Selena Gomez is facing a lawsuit accusing her and her former business partners of fraud tied to her mental health startup, Wondermind Global.
Two investment groups filed the complaint Thursday in Delaware federal court, alleging the actress, her mother Mandy Teefey, and former business partner Daniella Pierson misrepresented the company’s prospects to secure nearly $1.2 million in funding.
According to the lawsuit, Gomez, Teefey and Pierson falsely claimed Wondermind had the infrastructure, leadership and resources to launch a profitable mental health and wellness platform. The investors say they were told Gomez would be intimately involved in marketing, that Pierson was a ‘$200 million executive’ with secured partnerships, and that a full slate of revenue-generating initiatives were already underway.
But the partnerships did not exist, the initiatives never materialized, and the app was never built, the lawsuit alleges. For three years, the company quietly collapsed around them, and none of the founders or officers said a word to the investors, according to the complaint.
The investors say they only learned of the problems after a September 2025 article in The Cut detailed the startup’s fall. The article alleged Pierson had been ousted as co-CEO after a dispute with Teefey, and that Gomez had sought to distance herself due to a strained relationship with her mother. Teefey denied the allegations in a statement to TMZ.
The lawsuit also cites Forbes reporting that Pierson had exaggerated the success of her previous ventures. When investors contacted Teefey, she allegedly said Pierson had misappropriated investor funds to fund a lavish lifestyle. That was the first they heard of troubles within Wondermind, despite Pierson leaving the company in 2023.
Still, they say the company continued to misrepresent its state. This April, Teefey allegedly told investors an escrow account had been created to pay them back, but no such account existed.
Wondermind had claimed a valuation of $95 million when it raised $5 million in 2022 from investors including Serena Williams‘s venture fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. The five individual investors, including former Allergan CEO Brent Saunders, invested $1.2 million in that round. They were lured by the promise that Gomez would leverage her audience of more than 500 million social media followers to market the company.
The plaintiffs also accused the defendants of concealing the company’s operating and financial issues, noting they were minority investors with limited information rights. They are now seeking to recoup their investments, along with damages, costs and attorneys’ fees. They have requested a jury trial.
Representatives for Gomez, Teefey and Pierson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. USA TODAY has reached out as well.
