Once a princess, always a princess. Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato have reunited for the first time on camera in years, and they did it in the most nostalgic way possible: by recreating their 2009 Disney Channel movie Princess Protection Program for a new Rare Beauty campaign.
The collaboration launched on Wednesday, October 28, and fans have been flooding social media ever since, calling it a dream come true and a trip straight back to their childhood.
A poster-perfect throwback
Gomez shared the campaign on Instagram with a carousel of photos. The first image recreates the movie’s original poster, with both stars wearing the blue and yellow dresses their characters, Carter Mason and Princess Rosalinda María Montoya Fioré, wore in the film. Other shots show the new Rare Beauty products and the pair, still in costume, doing their makeup together.
“Once a Princess, always a Princess,” Gomez wrote in her caption, adding: “Best friends don’t just have each other’s backs. They make them blush too.” On her Instagram Story, she called the shoot “the most special day” and tagged Lovato.
“Delena” is back with a vlog
The campaign video is a love letter to the duo’s early YouTube days. It opens with a playful “Yo. Yo. Yo.” — a nod to the vlogs the two made together back in 2008 — and Rare Beauty introduced it as “18 years later, Delena is back with a vlog.”
Set in a teenage girl’s bedroom decorated with photos from the Princess Protection Program set, the video shows the pair jumping on a twin bed, dancing, and lip-syncing to “One and the Same,” the song they recorded for the movie. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” Lovato asks, before Gomez asks, “Who is your best friend?” The clip ends with the words “still making each other blush.” The full version is available on Gomez’s YouTube channel.
The Delena blush bundle
The campaign celebrates a new two-piece set named after the pair’s fan-favorite nickname: the Delena Soft Pinch Blush Bundle. It includes Rare Beauty’s Soft Pinch Liquid Blush in Hope, the nude mauve shade Gomez wears in the campaign, and Virtue, the beige peach shade worn by Lovato. A Soft Pinch Blush Brush is included free with the bundle, which is available now at rarebeauty.com.
A friendship that started on “Barney”
Gomez and Lovato’s story goes back more than two decades. The two met as kids on Barney & Friends in 2002 and went on to become two of Disney Channel’s biggest stars, Gomez with Wizards of Waverly Place and Lovato with Camp Rock and Sonny With a Chance, before teaming up for Princess Protection Program in 2009.
The pair later drifted apart in a reported fallout that lasted for years, but they appear to have fully mended their friendship. Gomez was spotted cheering on Lovato at one of her It’s Not That Deep Tour concerts in April, and now the two are back side by side, proving some friendships really are one and the same.
