Selena Gomez calls out kidney transplant joke on 'The Good Fight'

Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Selena Gomez is calling out a "tasteless" joke about her kidney transplant on The Good Fight.

The 29-year-old singer and actress responded Tuesday after The Good Fight included a reference to her 2017 kidney transplant in its July 17 episode.

"I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing but sadly it has apparently. I hope in the next writer's room when one of these tasteless jokes are presented it's called out immediately and doesn't make it on air," Gomez wrote on Twitter.

Gomez thanked her fans for supporting her online and encouraged people to sign up to be an organ donor.

The Good Fight episode in question showed Marissa (Sarah Steele), Jay (Nyambi Nyambi) and Jim (Ifádansi Rashad) discuss cancel culture while brainstorming jokes for a television executive (Wayne Brady). The group decided that topics such as necrophilia, autism and "Selena Gomez's kidney transplant" were taboo.

A source told Variety that the reference to Gomez was taken out of context.

"If you watch the episode in full, the reference to Selena Gomez is part of a discussion the characters are having about topics that are not okay to make fun of and the idea of cancel culture and being canceled for telling a bad joke. The reference is that Selena Gomez's transplant is not something you can joke about," the source said.

Peacock's Saved by the Bell reboot previously included references to Gomez's kidney transplant, including two students arguing over the identity of Gomez's organ donor and the words "Does Selena Gomez even have a kidney" appearing on the walls of the school.

Peacock, NBCUniversal and the show's executive producers apologized and ultimately edited out the references.

"We apologize. It was never our intention to make light of Selena's health. We have been in touch with her team and will be making a donation to her charity, The Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC," they said at the time.

Gomez went public about her kidney transplant in September 2017. Her friend Francia Raisa was her organ donor.