Frightening science behind how vaping impacts your voice after Selena Gomez suffers 'permanent damage'
Selena Gomez’s admission that vaping has permanently altered her voice has been an eye-opener for many, and now science is backing her claim.
The Only Murders in the Building star has finally come out to address the elephant in the room that has been relentlessly commented on under her posts, and online in general: her changing voice.
Commenters have been particularly interested in how it happened, with videos being created which show the evolution of her voice from her early career in singing, until now.
According to Gomez, the noticeable change has been caused by vaping nicotine over the years.
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"I’m not gonna be able to change my voice," Gomez said in an Instagram Stories video, adding: "I vaped nicotine a lot.”
"It’s so stupid. It changed my voice," she continued. "So if you guys don’t like listening to my voice, that’s totally understandable. I don’t mind. Just don’t listen to it."
The 34-year-old's claim has left people on either side of the fence, with some finding it hard to believe as a lot of people vape without reporting the same side effect.
Fans have previously speculated that the voice change was chased by Gomez’s lupus diagnosis, which is a disease that can also impact the vocal cords.
According to Healthline, it can cause something known as vocal fatigue, and also altered vocal quality as well as reduced vocal intensity during flare-ups.
However, while research on how vaping impacts your voice is minor, the science behind it is enough to show that voice change has been recorded and is a known effect.
Two studies, one in 2022 and another in 2025, reveal the reason behind this.
Per the first study, smoking e-cigarettes can cause something known as ‘acute epiglottitis, a life-threatening airway obstruction induced by direct epithelial injury and subsequent inflammatory reaction.’
This occurs when the human vocal fold mucosae experiences ‘cellular damage of luminal cells, disrupting homeostasis and innate immune responses.’
In short: it damages the cells and stops the folds from working as they should because they become eroded and can lead to the membranes becoming thickened.
The researchers were able to find this out by creating a fake vocal fold mucosae that they exposed to vape juice for a week to measure the damage.
As for the second study, 26 electronic cigarette users and 39 nonusers had their ‘voice, dyspnea, and cough symptoms’ studied and took note of who smoked, who didn’t and whether they used things like vapes or cannabis too.
The result was that those who smoked faced ‘greater voice and cough symptoms’ with a ‘longer duration of use significantly related to greater symptoms.’
They also saw ‘subtle changes to laryngeal kinematics’ - the way their vocal folds moved.
Regarding this conversation. It isn't the first time Gomez has spoken about the change to her voice, as the singer previously talked about it during an Instagram Live session last December.
"I’ve gotten this question a few times. The voice thing," she said. "My throat kind of swells inside sometimes. That’s all."
Topics: Vaping, Selena Gomez, Health, Science
Britt Jones