Saved by the Bell apologizes for Selena Gomez kidney jokes

NBC’s Peacock apologized for scenes from new reboot Saved by the Bell which refer to Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant in 2017 following outrage from Gomez fans on social media. In a scene from the sixth episode of the new series, two students argue over the identity of Gomez’s kidney donor, with one character claiming it to be “Justin Bieber’s mother” and the other claiming that it was Demi Lovato (actually the donor was from Gomez. Amie Francia Raisa.) In a later scene, graffiti in the hallway of the school seems to indicate: “Does Selena Gomez even have a kidney?” . ” Gomez fans taken to twitter Express their anger to jokes, with the hashtag “RESPECT SELENA GOMEZ” trend on the site on Saturday. A Change.org petition calling for the reboot to be canceled also garnered more than 4,000 signatures. Peacock responded to the controversy by saying in a statement, “We apologize. We never intended to shed light on Selena’s health. We have been in contact with her team and will donate to her charity, the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC. Gomez herself has yet to respond to the situation.