Kill Em With Kindness

Selena Gomez explained the song's message of treating haters with kindness to Just Jared: "I think people won't even realize that their words are so meaningful and I think people need to hear that a little bit more," she said. "There's just a lot that happens and now with social media and how much access people can have to your heart and your feelings, it's a little frightening." "And I think that it's very important to understand that if you combat it and don't give in to it, it will just make you feel so much better," Gomez continued. "I will have such a heavy conscience if I retaliate all the hate I get. Trust me, I want to, but I do feel like that's always been the best thing for me, is turning the other cheek."

The expression to kill with kindness means to to get what you want by being very kind to another person. Its original meaning was to overwhelm or harm someone with mistaken or excessive benevolence and the phrase originated as a 16th century proverb 'kill with kindness as fond apes do their young.' In 1607 Thomas Heywood wrote a domestic tragedy A Woman Killed with Kindness.

Selena Gomez said about the song during a Revival listening party: "Everybody needs to hear that. I know it's so much easier to be mean, maybe more fun sometimes. But being able to wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and know that you gave your best when people were coming at you at your worst - you just have to kill 'em with kindness."