Why Selena Gomez named her new kidney after Fred Armisen

Selena Gomez will always last Fred Armissen close to her heart.

When the Murders Under Construction star had a kidney transplant in 2017, she knew she wanted to give her new organ a special name.

“I named it after Fred Armisen because I love Portlandia,” Selena said in a Nov. 3 interview with Rolling Stone. “I’ve never met him, but I secretly hope he finds out just because I want him to say, ‘That’s weird.'”

Armisen co-founded Portlandia — a sketch comedy show set in Portland, Oregon that poked fun at the city’s hipster reputation — with the actress Carrie Brownstein. The show aired on IFC for eight seasons from 2011 to 2018.

The show’s final seasons aired during a particularly difficult part of Gomez’s life.

Gomez, the subject of the new Apple TV+ documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, was diagnosed with lupus in 2015, which led to a kidney transplant shortly after the release of her second solo album, Revival.

“I’m very aware that some of my fans noticed that I took a break for part of the summer and wondered why I wasn’t promoting my new music, which I was very proud of,” she said on Instagram in September 2017 . “So I found out I needed a kidney transplant for my lupus and I recovered.”