Grand Prairie's Selena Gomez stuns at American Music Awards with passionate speech

The singer of "(Can't Keep My) Hands to Myself," Selena Gomez, gave one of the most poignant speeches of the evening at the American Music Awards on Sunday, Nov. 20.

Accepting the award for winning pop-rock female, Gomez thanked the crowd and expanded upon the recent break she took from music to deal with personal issues.

"In 2014, this stage was actually the first time that I was authentically, 100 percent honest with all of you," Gomez said.

"I think it's safe to say that most of you know a lot of my life whether I like it or not. And, I had to stop. Because I had everything. And I was absolutely broken inside. And I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down, but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down.

"I don't want to see your bodies on Instagram. I want to see what's in here," Gomez said, gesturing to her heart.

"I'm not trying to get validation, nor do I need it anymore. All I can say from the bottom of my heart is I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to be able to share what I love every single day with people that I love. And I have to say thank you so much to my fans, because you guys are so damn loyal, and I don't know what I did to deserve you."

"But if you are broken, you do not have to stay broken." 

"And if that's anything, whether you respect me or not, that is one thing you should know about me is I care about people. And thank you so much for this. This is for you."

Then cameras panned to Lady Gaga, who was beaming.

Gomez was born in Grand Prairie and worked with D-FW-based Barney and Friends as a child. She was the first celebrity to hit 100 million Instagram followers. Gomez now has 103 million followers but has not shared a photo or video for more than three months.

For the pop-rock female award, Gomez was up against Adele and Rihanna, some of the biggest pop stars in the world.

Ariana Grande took home the artist of the year award at the AMAs.

Outside of music, the AMAs turned into a political affair.

Dallas' own Mark Cuban announced an award, leading it off with a Donald Trump joke in which he said he's looking forward to "not being invited to the inauguration."

Later in the awards show, rock band Green Day chanted "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA" in the middle of one of its songs. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong had already shown distaste for Trump, Billboard notes: He compared the president-elect to Hitler in August.