Selena Gomez Introduces the Katherine Short Legacy Award at Rare Impact Fund Gala, Honoring Martin Short's Late Daughter

LOS ANGELES

At a gala built around helping young people through their hardest moments, Selena Gomez paused the evening for its most personal announcement. People reported that Gomez hosted the fourth annual Rare Impact Fund Benefit on Wednesday, October 14, at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, and that during the event she introduced a new honor: the Katherine Short Legacy Award, named in memory of Katherine Short, the daughter of her friend and Only Murders in the Building co-star Martin Short. Katherine, a social worker who devoted her career to mental-health support, died in February at the age of 42. Her family confirmed her passing at the time and asked for privacy, and this week her name returned to public view in the way her work deserved — attached to help for other people.

Gomez framed the award around the career it commemorates. According to People, she told the room that this part of the night meant a lot to her, and described Katherine as a social worker who devoted her own career to "helping people through some of their hardest points." The award, Gomez said, will carry Katherine's name forward by honoring people who have made the same kind of commitment to their communities. Entertainment Weekly's account of the evening carried the same introduction and the same purpose: a legacy award, presented in Katherine's name, for the kind of quiet, sustained community work she spent her career doing.

Martin Short joined her onstage

Gomez then welcomed Martin Short to the stage to help present the award for the first time. People reported that she spoke of her many years of friendship with Short — the two have starred together on Only Murders in the Building since 2021 — and of how deeply he loves his family, and said she was grateful he was there for the presentation. Short, in turn, praised Gomez and her work, and then spoke, carefully and briefly, about his daughter and his family.

People and Entertainment Weekly both reported Short describing the past year as a very difficult one, and the loss of his daughter as "the heartbreak of our family." According to Entertainment Weekly's report, he spoke about what his family has come to understand over the past eight months: that mental health conditions, like the cancer that took his wife, are diseases, and that mental illness should not be hidden or treated as a source of shame. TV Insider's account of the evening carried the same themes, including Short's emphasis on bringing mental-health struggles into the open. It was, by every account, a short speech — and a deliberately public one, from a performer who has kept his family's grief largely private since February.

An award that fits the fund it was announced at

The setting was not incidental. People reported that the Rare Impact Fund Benefit marked the work the organization has done, including raising more than $30 million to support youth mental-health organizations and initiatives. The fund, which Gomez founded alongside her Rare Beauty brand, describes its aim as a world where young people have access to mental-health care and stigma-free community support. An award honoring a working social worker — not a celebrity, not a donor — presented by the fund's founder alongside her friend, lands squarely inside that mission.

The guest list underlined the evening's reach. Just Jared's coverage of the benefit listed attendees including Gomez's husband Benny Blanco, Katy Perry, America Ferrera, Sean Hayes, Shay Mitchell and Olympian Jordan Chiles, among others, at the Hollywood Palladium event. But the coverage of the night, across People, Entertainment Weekly, Page Six and TV Insider alike, has centered on the same few minutes: an introduction, an award with Katherine Short's name on it, and a father standing beside his friend to present it.

What the award will carry forward

Details of the award's future cadence — how often it will be presented, and to whom — have not been announced beyond the purpose Gomez set out onstage: honoring people who make Katherine's kind of commitment to their communities. That restraint suits the story. Katherine Short was not a public figure; she was a clinical social worker whose career was spent helping people navigate difficult moments, in the description carried by the evening's coverage. The legacy award takes that private, practical work and makes it the standard a public honor is measured against.

For Martin Short, the evening added a public chapter to a year his family has otherwise grieved privately, and he chose to spend it arguing — in front of cameras, donors and colleagues — that mental illness is an illness, and that the people who devote their working lives to it deserve to be named and thanked. The Katherine Short Legacy Award will now do that naming, year after year, starting with its first presentation at the Hollywood Palladium. Readers in the United States who are struggling, or who are worried about someone who is, can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any hour. For more entertainment coverage, see our weekend viewing guide and browse.