Birthday girl Selena Gomez asks fans to donate to lupus charity

Pop star Selena Gomez turned her birthday on Saturday (22Jul17) into a fundraiser as she asked friends, family and fans to make charity donations in her honor.

The Come and Get It hitmaker turned 25 over the weekend and celebrated with an intimate house party, where she was joined by a few loved ones.

She shared a pair of photos of herself surrounded by white, teal, and turquoise-colored balloons on Instagram.

"Thank you for all of my bday (sic) love," she captioned one image. "I couldn't be more blessed. A lot of you don't realize how much you mean to me. I. Love. You - think 25 is going to be epic."

Alongside another picture of her girlfriends cheering her on as she prepared to blow out the candles on a cake, she simply wrote, "My people".

She also expressed her gratitude for all of the well-wishes on Twitter, and asked devotees to give money to the The Lupus Research Alliance in lieu of sending her gifts.

Tweeting a link to the charity's page on classy.org, she posted, "Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! Asked my family and friends to make a donation - if you want to join".

The cause is one close to her heart as Selena was diagnosed with the auto-immune disease in 2015 and she quit a tour last year (16) to focus on her health.

Unfortunately the birthday girl had to spend her special day away from her boyfriend, R&B star The Weeknd as he was in France performing at the Lollapalooza Paris festival on Saturday. The couple has been dating since the end of 2016.