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Demi's passion for singing and acting was first discovered at the ripe age of 7 when her mother, Dianna De La Garza, entered her into beauty pageants. In 2000, Demi was crowned Texas State Cinderella Miniature Miss. This would be the start of her rise to stardom.

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After many auditions, Lovato landed her first acting job in 2002 starring in Barney and Friends, a children's television series targeted at children aged 2-7yrs. Demi was just 8-years old. She worked alongside co-star Selena Gomez until 2004, signally the start of her acting career.

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Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato singing on Barney!

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Landing Camp Rock was a pinnacle moment in Demi's acting career and was often described as her 'big break'. She booked the role of Mitchie Torres - an aspiring teenage musician - in 2008 at the age of 15. She worked alongside the Jonas Brothers on the Disney film series, later doing a spin-off 'Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam'. The film series was hugely successful amongst young children/'tween' girls. Unsurprisingly, the Camp Rock franchise soon converged into various media platforms and formats including video game, merchandise (toys, clothing, bags), music and karaoke functions and publishing (Camp Rock: The Junior Novel). This highlights the power of Disney as a transnational company and their support for Lovato as a rising child star.

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Initially... (Camp Rock 1)

Aspiring musician

Shy/timid/insecure

Easily influenced by others

Bullied for her working class background

'Plain Jane' - plain, baggy clothing, earthy tones

Introverted

Lacked confidence

Becomes... (Camp Rock 2)

Talented and confident musician

Excitable

A leader

Extroverted

Appearance evolved - vivid clothing, trendy hair-cut

Comedic, loud, outspoken, bold

Here there is an overlap with Demi's own character

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In Dancing with the Devil, Demi also discusses her horrific experiences with sexual assault. In 2021, Demi was raped by her drug dealer while overdosing on heroin. However, this was not her first instance of sexual assault. Demi lost her virginity to rape as a teenage by someone who was closely tied to the Disney circle. At the time she was reluctant to speak out about her assault due to her highly religious upbringing and her involvement in the Disney 'chaste' brand. During her time on Disney Demi and other Disney stars (Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez), were encouraged to wear purity rings, representing a commitment to chastity. By doing this, Disney were able to capitalise on the old saying of "sex sells" but with a parent-approved twist. Similarly, the rings helped to project the innocent image of Disney stars and encouraged them to behave in ways consistent with this image. The rings also led to an uncomfortable fixation with Disney stars virginities as it became an intriguing topic that journalists often explored in interviews. Therefore, Demi's commitment encouraged her to remain silent about her assault to preserve her 'pure chaste image'.

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Following three months of treatment, Demi publicly revealed her bipolar diagnosis in 2011. This diagnosis perhaps explained her unorthodox behaviour towards Welch that happened a few months prior. Although Disney cannot be blamed for this diagnosis, it is hard to ignore the 'Disney Star Curse' here. Frequent correlations can be spotted between Disney stars and mental health diagnoses, including Britney Spears and Selena Gomez who have both been diagnosed with bipolar.

Despite her recent altercation with Welch, Demi managed to salvage her star status as she chose to incorporate her mental health struggles into her celebrity image. In the months and years that followed, Demi opened up about her drug/alcohol addiction, eating disorder and mental illnesses, embracing them as part of her identity.

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Demi posted this image to her Instagram to broadcast the end of her pop era to her fans. Everyone dressed in black to symbolise the 'death' of her pop music. She deleted every post that preceded this, signally the start of a new era. It was met with a varied reaction from fans, some saying that they will "miss the old Demi", while others embraced her new identity:

"This is the Demi we needed."

"So excited that Demi is going back to her rock roots. Anyone that has followed Demi from the beginning knows she’s always been a rocker."

"Demi's return to rock is such a gift."

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While it may be Demi's acting that thrust her into the spotlight, her talents as a musician were quickly recognised and displayed throughout the Camp Rock series. Her debut single 'This is Me', featuring Joe Jonas, was released in 2008 as part of the Camp Rock soundtrack album. It initially premiered on Radio Disney and later by Walt Disney Records. Releasing her first single under the persona of Mitchie Torres, and the watchful eye of Disney, meant that the song strongly aligned with her character's narrative and supported Disney's 'family-friendly' brand image. At this time, Demi was yet to step out from behind the shadow of her Disney persona and establish herself as an independent artist.

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In this documentary, Demi opened up about her estranged relationship with her late father, Patrick Lovato. This was due to his abuse of drugs and alcohol; he was also abusive towards Demi's mother. The severing of family-ties appears to be a recurring theme amongst Disney stars, including Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan, highlighting the difficulties of stardom.

Patrick eventually passed away in June 2013 after battling cancer. His death date remains unconfirmed, however it was estimated that he was found a week after his death. Since then, Demi has used her music - for example 'For the Love of a Daughter' (2011) and 'Father' (2015) - to convey her feelings towards her father. This again adds to her authenticity and relatability as fractured family relationships is a topic that her fans may be able to resonate with.

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Demi Lovato has bravely opened up about her addiction battle, her near-fatal overdose and her difficult and estranged relationship with her father in her new documentary series Dancing With The Devil

Demi Lovato 's estranged father lay dead for at least a week before his body was discovered.

The singer bravely opened up about her difficult relationship with her dad Patrick, her addiction battle and the overdose that almost claimed her life in 2018 in her new documentary series Dancing With The Devil.

The former Disney Channel star, 28, struggled with addiction from a young age and had been sober for six years before she fell off the wagon and overdosed not long after that.

She had overdosed on heroin that was believed to be laced with fentanyl, and shockingly, she revealed that she was sexually assaulted by her drug dealer and left for dead.

Speaking of the build up to that night, she opened up about her relationship with her dad.

Demi admitted: "I crossed a line that I'd never crossed in the world of addiction.

"It's interesting that it took me a quarantine to work on this trauma stuff, I have never really taken the time to dig deep and do the work on."

A clip of Demi singing Father in March 2018 was shown.

She sat at the piano belting out the powerful ballad about her father's addition, which includes the lyrics: "I hope that heaven's giving you a second chance."

At the end of the song, pictures of Demi and her dad were shown on a giant screen behind her, and she admitted that as she was overcome with emotion.

She said: "We had an estranged relationship, so we weren't close and growing up my whole life I longed for that relationship with him, and then I resented him because he was an addict and an alcoholic and was abusive to my mom.

"And so I cut him out because I felt like it was causing more harm than good to have him in my life.

"His death was very complicated because we don't actually know the exact day that he died.

"All we know is that by the time he was found his body was too decomposed to have an open casket.

"He had been laying there, I think for about a week and a half before anybody found him and during that was Father's Day so every summer now that rolls around, I spend that kind of thinking, 'Was today the day that my dad died? Is it tomorrow?' And then also knowing that by the time Father's Day rolls around like he was just laying there rotting.

"That was the fear I always had for him, that he would end up alone, and he did, he died alone."

A clip of Demi talking to her fans on stage was then shown.

Her voice cracked and she got emotional as she said: "Mental health is something that we all need to talk about and we need to take the stigma away from it.

"Six years ago I was drinking vodka out of a Sprite bottle at nine in the morning, throwing up in the car, and I just remember thinking this is no longer cute, this is no longer fun, and I'm just like my dad."

Demi's mother Dianna De La Garza spoke of how her daughter had underlying problems that she was trying to self-medicate.

She said Demi was around for some of the abuse from her first husband and that it stayed with her for many years.

Demi also opened up about the guilt she felt for not helping her father through his addiction.

She told the cameras: "I also felt a lot of guilt over the years because I'd been such an advocate for mental health yet here was my father who had bipolar and schizophrenia and on top of that the disease of addiction and I hadn't helped him the way that I would have helped other people or the way that I had been preaching about, and that really ate up at me.

"But ultimately I know that he was kind of too far gone at that point, he needed to realise that he needed help himself."

* The first two episodes of Dancing With The Devil are available to watch on YouTube now - episode three will land on March 30
Frank offers confidential advice about drugs and addiction (email frank@talktofrank.com, message 82111 or call 0300 123 6600) or the NHS has information about getting help.

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Tragedy of Demi Lovato's dad who lay dead for a week before he was found

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Demi Lovato has bravely opened up about her addiction battle, her near-fatal overdose and her difficult and estranged relationship with her father in her new documentary series Dancing With The Devil

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Demi also spoke candidly about how she was bullied as a teenager, which eventually caused her to drop out of school. Demi says that she has been left permanently scarred - quite literally given her history of cutting - due to the names she was called in school. This experience not only caused her to lean into her eating disorder, but also led her to experiment with drugs and alcohol at age 13 as a means to 'escape' the pain she was feeling. Given Demi's teenage/young adult audience, bullying is a topic that many of her fans may be able to resonate with, adding to her relatable star image.

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This song serves as an apology to Demi's younger-self for the dietary restrictions that she, and other people, put on her. This song also signals Demi's growth and recovery from her eating disorder as the chorus chants "no more melon cakes."

These are some key lyrics that stuck out in particular:

"There was a time the cat and mouse tried to make me Barbie-sized and I obliged"

"Finally get to do things my way"

"Dear little me, I'm sorry that it took so long, but baby you're free"

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Since her overdose, Demi has embraced her queerness much more openly. Fans first speculated that Demi was sexually fluid following the release of her song 'Cool for the Summer' in 2015 (as previously explored). Since then, Demi revealed that she was on a dating app with both guys and girls and that she is open to any human connection. Therefore, Demi's transformation, particularly her recent hair cut, signifies an embrace of her true queer self and signals a release from the hyper-feminine and heterosexual norms that were imposed on her as a child. Therefore, as the caption says, "Demi Lovato is Finally Home" in terms of her sexuality.

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In July 2018, Demi overdosed on heroin that was, unknowingly, laced with fentanyl (a concoction that has killed stars like Prince and Mac Miller). She suffered three strokes, a heart attack, brain damage, multiple organ failure and vision impairment (which still affects her today). This was undeniably the most life-changing experience for Demi.

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The singer, 28, has revealed the devastating effects of her 2018 drug overdose in her new documentary Dancing With The Devil

In a trailer for the series from OBB Pictures, Lovato claims she had three strokes, a heart attack and has been left with brain damage

The pop star claims she has also been left unable to drive because of blind spots in her vision

'My doctors said that I had five to 10 more minutes,' said Lovato in a teaser for the four-part series on Wednesday

Demi Lovato revealed she had 'THREE strokes, a heart attack and now has brain damage' as a result of her 2018 drug overdose - believed to be heroin.

In a teaser for her upcoming YouTube documentary Dancing With The Devil, which premieres March 23, the pop star, 28, admitted the overdose nearly left her for dead.

'I had three strokes. I had a heart attack. My doctors said that I had five to 10 more minutes,' said Lovato stoically during a confessional for the four-parter.

Appearing to confirm that it was heroin that Lovato overdosed on, her friend says in the clip: 'She should be dead. Are we talking about heroin? Are we doing that?'

At one point, an image of Demi's tattooed hand hooked up to an IV and covered in medical tape, as well as with a hospital band fastened around her wrist, appeared on screen.

The hospital band featured Lovato's August 20, 1992 birthdate, as well as the date she was admitted to the hospital: '7/24/2018'

As she continued to reflect on the life changing incident and the effect it has continued to have on herself, her friends, and family, Demi compared her resiliency to that of a cat with nine lives.

'I've had a lot of lives, like my cat. You know, I'm on my ninth life,' she stressed. 'I'm ready to get back to doing what I love, which is making music.'

While discussing the upcoming YouTube Originals series, Demi elaborated on the lingering effects her overdose has had on her mental and physical health, during a Television Critics Association panel on Wednesday.

'I was left with brain damage, and I still deal with the effects of that today. I don't drive a car because I have blind spots in my vision,' admitted the Sonny With A Chance actress.

The documentary is from OBB Pictures, a division of Michael D. Ratner's OBB Media, who were behind Justin Bieber: Seasons.

Demi also noted that 'for a long time had a really hard time reading,' so it was 'really big deal when I was able to read out of a book, like, two months later because my vision was so blurry.'

'I've dealt with the repercussions, and they're there to remind me what could happen if I get into a dark place again. I'm grateful for these reminders,' concluded the star.

The nearly three-minute teaser trailer for Dancing With The Devil features scenes from Lovato's extraordinary life, including backstage footage, stage performances, as well as intimate interviews with her closest confidants.

'I crossed a line that I had never crossed,' said Lovato of her overdose, with the trailer cutting to a confessional with her best friend Matthew Scott Montgomery.

'Are we talking about heroin? Are we doing this?' he asked the cameramen and producers frantically.

Demi's mother Dianna De La Garza, stepfather Eddie, older sister Dallas, 33, and younger half-sister Madison also make cameos in the four-part docuseries.

The trailer commences with images of Demi from her days of childhood stardom, her successful career with the Disney Channel, as well as the tumultuous months leading up to the overdose that nearly cost her her life.

Fans of Lovato will also get a glimpse into Lovato's ill-fated July 2020 engagement to soap star Max Ehrich, 29, and, presumably, the messy split that played out online just two months later.

'Im engaged!' exclaimed Demi as she flashed her engagement ring at the camera, while filming one of her many candid confessionals for the series, which will premiere with two full-length episodes on March 23 on the pop star's YouTube channel.

Elton John and Christina Aguilera, who have formed a friendship with Demi over the years, will make appearances during Dancing With The Devil, to provide their perspective on Demi's growth and unrelenting drive to overcome her demons.

'It's been two years since I came face-to-face with the darkest point in my life, and now I'm ready to share my story with the world,' said Lovato in a press release regarding Dancing With The Devil in January, when it was announced.

'For the first time, you'll be able to see my chronicle of struggle and ongoing healing from my point of view.

'I'm grateful that I was able to take this journey to face my past head-on and finally share it with the world,' concluded Demi.

The final two episodes of Dancing With The Devil will be 'released weekly on each of the next two Tuesdays,' according to Rolling Stone.

Director Michael D. Ratner explained that filming for Dancing With The Devil commenced in 2018 during Lovato's Tell Me You Love Me World Tour, which came to an abrupt end in July of that year.

On July 24, just two days before she was set to take the stage in New Jersey, Demi was transported to a Los Angeles area hospital after suffering from an opioid overdose.

The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to Rolling Stone that it had 'responded to a medical emergency call at 11:22 a.m.' at Lovato's Hollywood Hills home.

A source revealed to TMZ that when paramedics arrived to Demi's residence they headed inside where they found the star unconscious.

Paramedics on the scene administered naloxone, which is a medication designed to treat narcotic overdose, before rushing Lovato to a nearby by hospital, as per NBC.

TMZ also reported at the time that the Sonny With A Chance actress had been 'celebrating a friend's birthday in West Hollywood' the night prior to her near-fatal overdose.

Representatives for Lovato issued a statement to Variety on July 25 confirming that Demi had not succumbed to her overdose and that she was surrounded by her closest loved ones, presumably in hospital.

'Demi is awake and with her family who want to express thanks to everyone for the love, prayers and support,' it began.

The statement also suggested that 'some of the information being reported [was] incorrect,' which was a direct reference to claims suggesting that Demi had overdosed on heroin.

'They respectfully ask for privacy and not speculation as her health and recovery is the most important thing right now.'

Demi was released from the hospital in August and went on to spend three months in a rehab facility.

A month prior to her overdose, the Disney Channel alum released her emotional ballad Sober, which featured lyrics suggesting she had relapsed.

In March of that year, Demi had celebrated six years of sobriety, following years of admitted alcohol and cocaine abuse.

Demi's four-part docuseries Dancing With The Devil promises 'an honest look back at some of the most trying times in Lovato's life as she unearths her prior traumas and discovers the importance of her physical, emotional, and mental health.'

In his own statement, Ratner praised Lovato's 'willingness to explore the darkest elements of her life' and that her raw honestly will 'leave the audience with a complete understanding of everything she's been through and ultimately where she is going.'

'Demi stands for empowerment, and this documentary is going to answer the many questions that have been out there - providing a real window into the life of one of the biggest stars in the world, who is simply a human being,' he concluded.

Lovato proudly announced Dancing With The Devil on her official Instagram page on Tuesday, writing: 'There has been so much that I've wanted to say, but knew I had to say it right.'

She included a still image of herself with a stoic expression that was taken during the confessional portion of the documentary series.

Demi continued: 'Thank you to my family, friends, and fans for staying by my side over the years as I learn and grow. I'm so excited to finally share this story with you that I've held on to for the last 2 years. #DemiDWTD coming soon!'

Though the docuseries is expected to give fans a clear understanding of Demi's ongoing struggle with addiction and mental health, the star did offer some insight during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres last year.

She told the 62-year-old talk show host that she 'first got sober when [she] was 19, which was an age that [she] wasn't supposed to be drinking at all.'

'I got the help I needed at the time and I took a 'one size fits all' approach and that was just sobriety,' explained Lovato, adding that her ongoing eating disorder made the experience even more complex.

'It led me to being really, really unhappy...I asked for help, but didn't get the help that I needed.'

Demi admitted that although she was 'six years sober' in March of 2018, she 'was more miserable than when [she] was drinking.'

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Demi Lovato had 'THREE strokes and a heart attack' due to overdose

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Demi Lovato will speak openly about her near-fatal 2018 overdose in her upcoming YouTube documentary series Dancing With The Devil, which premieres March 23.

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In 2015, Demi did a nude photoshoot for Vanity Fair. She had three rules: no makeup, no clothing and no retouching. This served to shine Demi in a very authentic light. It shows how she uses her platform to empower herself, and other women. In the image (linked above), Demi appears confident and content in her own skin, which is a major contrast to how she has previously felt about her body. This signifies growth, development and recovery which is inspiring to witness, particularly for her young female audience. Evidence of this can be spotted in her fans responses to the shoot (linked right).

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For 8-years, Demi had watermelon cakes for her birthday instead of traditional birthday cakes. This shows the strict controls she, and others, imposed on her diet.

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“4-years old with my back to the door. All I could hear was the family war. Your selfish hands always expecting more”

These lyrics refer to the domestic abuse that Demi witnessed at a young age between her father and mother.

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Demi points to her religious and Southern upbringing as the primary reason behind her concealed queer identity. Demi grew up in Texas in a Christian household therefore, gender and sexual fluidity was not something that was normalised during her childhood. She remembers often feeling more masculine than feminine and feeling attracted to women from a young age. However, due to the numerous anti-LGBTQ+ policies in the South, Demi felt forced to conceal this part of her identity.

Therefore, among letting go of her traumatic past, Demi said cutting her hair was a way to 'free her' from the gender and heterosexual norms that were placed on her as a child.

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Demi Lovato remembers being ‘attracted to everyone’ from a young age, but felt shamed because of Christian upbringing

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The singer came out as nonbinary on May 19 and told Jane Fonda they struggled their entire life to understand their gender.

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Demi pictured with the CEO of CAST Centre, Mike Bayer

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Now I have explored the various trial and tribulations that Demi has been through, it is unsurprising that she became a strong advocate and philanthropist for mental health and addiction.

One of Demi's key ventures involved teaming up with her former treatment centre - CAST - and becoming a co-owner. In 2018, Demi took CAST on tour, offering fans free group therapy, workshops and motivational speeches before her concerts. 'CAST on Tour' was a very influential and inspiring movement that fans could engage with and benefit from. For example, one fan said she sought treatment for her alcoholism for the first time after attending a 'CAST on Tour' workshop.

Alongside this, Demi regularly attended charity events where she would perform and give speeches in an effort to raise awareness. Lovato was praised heavily by her fans and the media for her advocacy, and even won awards. This had a very positive effect on her image, reaffirming her position as a role model and a truly inspirational star.

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6 - The Inevitable Downfall of Disney Stars

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6 - The Inevitable Downfall of Disney Stars

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There seems to be an ongoing discourse in the media about the inevitable downfall of successful Disney-signed stars. This downfall comes in the form of a 'breakdown' phase where Disney stars fall victim to substance abuse, eating disorders or mental health diagnoses. Like Demi, other stars who began their careers on Disney have also had very public breakdowns, including Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan. Demi has opened up about the pressures of being a Disney star and the effect it had, claiming that it caused her to lean into her eating disorder and drug addiction.

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While Lovato still embraces her queer self, she has also been keen to showcase her new heterosexual relationship with musician Jordan Jutes on social media sites such as Instagram.

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It wasn't long until Demi's 'sweet' public mask began to slip and her issues with addiction and mental illness would begin to become public knowledge.

In 2010, while on tour with the Jonas Brothers for Camp Rock 2, Demi punched one of her backup dancers (Alex Welch), leaving visible bruises. Within days, Demi checked into a treatment facility in Illinois for emotional and physical issues. Soon enough, various rumours began circulating in the media about a traumatic childhood, alcohol and cocaine addiction and bulimia. This turn of events destabilised Demi's image as an innocent star and her position as a respectable role model was in jeopardy. She was even forced to exit Sonny with a Chance following the altercation. The media characterised Demi's sudden outburst in terms of a 'meltdown', a 'crisis' and a 'downward spiral.'

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Pictured: Demi's Back-Up Dancer Alex Welch 

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In this documentary, Demi opened up about her past of cutting and self-harm. She started cutting whilst working on Disney channel as she felt undeserving of her role model title which she had claimed unwillingly. When Lovato wasn't work, she was partying and taking drugs. This massively contradicted her image as a role model and actually, made her more of a bad example. She says she felt like she was "living a lie" since her image as a role model was not authentic. Consequently, she took this guilt and shame out on herself.

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Demi's statement to her fans made via Instagram after her near-fatal overdose. 

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In her first public statement following her overdose, Lovato described her battle with addiction as one that she must "continue to overcome." This centres her image around constant productivity and re-fixing that has no end.

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Demi Lovato FULL REMARKS & Performance at Democratic National Convention (C-SPAN)

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During Demi's "Tell Me You Love Me" world tour in 2018 at the Barclay's Centre, she celebrated six years of sobriety. Concert attendees, alongside DJ Khaled and Kehlani, sang happy 6th birthday to Demi which moved her to tears.

To the public, it appeared Demi had finally settled into this new way of life, pursuing and promoting an image of self-care and recovery. The Instagram caption (linked above) describes this moment on stage as "great" and "honest". However, unbeknownst to everyone, Demi relapsed on drugs and alcohol only a month later and within three months, she would be fighting for her life. This suggests that this moment at the Barclays Centre was perhaps not as honest and authentic as it appeared.

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Jeremy Parsons on Instagram: "Great, honest moment tonight from #DemiLovato - opening up about her sobriety. Yesterday was 6 years sober for her. This moment was just after #DJKhaled and #Kehlani surprised her on stage-had whole Barclays Center sing happy birthday to Demi. (Watch that bday vid in my story). .
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Thanks @hank 👏🏼👏🏼"

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4,506 likes, 26 comments - thejeremyparsons on March 16, 2018: "Great, honest moment tonight from #DemiLovato - opening up about her sobriety. Yesterday was 6 ye..."

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jeremy Parsons (@thejeremyparsons)

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A tweet made by Demi at age 17 whilst working on Disney Channel. 

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After witnessing her obvious talents and popularity with audiences, Disney wished to continue Demi's affiliation with the network through music. As a result, Demi signed with the Disney-owned label Hollywood Records in 2008 and released her first pop album 'Don't Forget'.

In terms of the album, viewers agreed that the songs had strong "Disney-esque" undertones. Other reviews described the debut as "very under control", hinting at Disney's input and influence. This shows how challenging it is for Disney child stars to separate themselves from their onscreen characters and the network.

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In this interview from 2017, Demi expresses the difficulty of transitioning from a child star into a successful mainstream artist. She says that after years of being 'moulded' into something, presumably by the Disney corporation, she found it difficult to establish her own identity, separate to what viewers have seen onscreen.

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Demi Lovato is getting real about making the transition from being a child star to a successful mainstream artist.

The 24-year-old singer sat down with YouTube's head of original programming, Susanne Daniels, on Monday in Cannes, France, where she opened up about her career. Lovato shot to stardom thanks to her role in the Disney Channel's Camp Rock, which came out in 2008, but she actually landed her first TV role at just 8 years old.

"Starting out at the industry at a very young age was something that I think I look back at, and I wouldn't start that young if I could do it over again," Lovato admitted. "I don't regret anything, but it was difficult transitioning from child star to transforming into a mainstream artist."
WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Demi Lovato Opens Up About Her Sobriety -- I Know 'My Life Depends On It'
"It's something that is very challenging, and you have to find your identity," she continued. "For so long, you've been molded into something, and now you're expected to figure out who you are -- very fast -- in front of the entire world."

Lovato acknowledged that she's still growing.

"It's definitely been difficult, but it's been a learning experience and I'm still figuring who I am every day," she said.

The "Confident" singer also talked about turning 25 in August, and what the milestone age means for her.

"I feel like I've lived a lot longer than I actually have," Lovato said.
WATCH: Demi Lovato Shows Off Major Cleavage in Swimsuit Selfie -- 'Why Not?'
Lovato also opened up about her struggles with fame when ET spoke with her in April at the Smurfs: The Lost Village junket.

"I feel like I went through a lot of stuff growing up, and I went through some challenges and obstacles," she said. "I felt like, at a period of time, I wasn't going to work again."

Watch below:

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Demi Lovato Gets Candid About Child Stardom: 'I Wouldn't Start That Young if I Could Do It Over Again'

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Demi Lovato Gets Candid About Child Stardom: 'I Wouldn't Start That Young if I Could Do It Over Again'

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In 'Dancing with the Devil', Demi discussed something that she had not yet revealed in her past two documentaries. She spoke out about the strict policing of her diet by her own management. From the ages of 16-18, Demi's team adopted some very unethical, arguably criminal, measures to ensure she maintained a 'certain look.' This included removing snacks from her hotel rooms, tracking her bank statements and even barricading her in hotel rooms to stop her from leaving to binge. For Demi, this was like throwing oil onto a blazing fire, reigniting her issues with bulimia. However her requests for treatment were denied by her team who claimed she was not sick enough. We can only assume that her team denied her treatment as the thought of Demi entering a facility would completely tarnish her carefully-crafted image that she and her team had spent years building.

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Demi also opened up about her struggle to stay sober after receiving treatment in 2011. She confessed to being high, intoxicated or extremely hungover during multiple interviews and performances. This included her performance on American Idol (linked above) which followed after a heavy night of partying. Demi was even under the influence of cocaine whilst promoting her 'sobriety' in her first documentary 'Stay Strong.' These confessions present Demi as a 'real' and 'normal' person who is going through the highs and lows of battling addiction and as someone who will slip-up and make mistakes as, like the rest of us, she is only human.

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DEMI LOVATO HUNGOVER SINGING ON AMERICAN IDOL

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Demi has even advised children from getting involved in the entertainment industry at such a young age.

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EXCLUSIVE: Demi Lovato Reveals the Advice She’d Give to Disney Channel Stars Today

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In a PopCrush Nights exclusive, Demi Lovato shares the words of wisdom they would give to Disney Channel stars today.

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Lovato, 30, featured in several Disney Channel projects between 2007 and 2010

The singer famously starred in hit series, Sonny With A Chance, and appeared on Camp Rock as a teen

During an appearance on Call Her Daddy, Lovato said she felt pressure to maintain an overwhelming workload because a new star could 'take her place'

The former child star claimed management used to 'barricade' her hotel room to control her eating disorder and stop her from ordering food

Lovato revealed that the person who raped her as a teen and took her virginity was not in the 'immediate Disney Circle' as some fans had assumed

She also got candid about using drugs and alcohol as a means to escape her management

The hitmaker was sober for six years from the age of 20 to 26, but suffered a near-fatal overdose in 2018, causing her to be legally blind and brain damaged

Demi Lovato has opened up about the devastating toll her work as a Disney child star had on her life, revealing how the relentless pace of work at such a young age, coupled with her 'controlling' management team sparked a years-long battle with drugs and eating disorders.

The 30-year-old singer detailed the horrific treatment she overcame as a child star during a no-holds-barred conversation with Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper, in an episode that was released on Wednesday.

On the podcast, Lovato claimed that she had been on such an intense schedule during her time with Disney that she would call her mother in floods of tears due to exhaustion, while there were several times when her management would 'barricade' her room to limit her access to food.

Speaking about life as a Disney star, she recalled: 'What people don't know is that the amount of work we had to do. Every year I filmed a season of a TV show, I went on tour, I made an album and I shot a movie and I did that all for like three years.

'If I had a hiatus from my show, then I would have the tour bus pull up to the studio and take me on tour for one week, or I would fly to London to do promo.'

Lovato continued: 'I remember one day I woke up and I was so tired and just drained from how much work I was doing as a 16 year old. I just started crying to my mom because I was so tired...

'There was this extreme workload that I think put a lot of pressure on us and that's why some of us turned to... I personally turned to, "If you're going to work me like an adult, I'm going to party like an adult." That at 16 wasn't healthy at all.'

She added: 'At a certain point, I was paying for the roof over my whole family's head, and my dad had quit his job to become my manager so his income was coming from me.

'My mom was a stay-at-home mom and there was just that pressure of "I'm paying for everything and like I need to keep going because if things start start to disappear, so does the finances".

The singer later claimed she had been 'brainwashed' by a 'controlling' manager who would lock her up in hotel rooms in order to stop the singer from ordering food.

Early in the chat, Lovato explained that she had first began to suffer from an eating disorder as a young girl after competing in beauty pageants which she called a 'toxic environment' for young children.'

'I'm going to go on the record here and say, like beauty pageants are awful for children self-esteem and like they teach you to ignore your emotions until you go to your hotel room and that's when you can cry it out,' she stressed.

She then claimed that her eating disorder struggles returned after someone took on a prominent position on her team when she was 17.

Lovato recalled: "There was someone that came into the picture and when they came into the picture, everything in my life was controlled. I started having a sober companion, which was helpful for me, but it should not have lasted three years.

'Then it became controlling around my food and, for someone in recovery from an eating disorder, that's so dangerous. It actually exasperated my eating disorder to the point where I became bulimic again from 2016 to 2018.'

She went on to recall the moment when she had to sneak out of her hotel room to make a call because 'they didn't let me have phones in my hotel rooms because they didn't want me to call room service.'

Lovato continued: 'I didn't have food and my hotel room like snacks in the minibar because they didn't want me to eat the snacks. My security guard walked by my room and was made aware that they had barricaded me into my hotel room.

'They put furniture outside of my door so that I couldn't get out and sneak out and eat if I wanted to. It was that level of controlling when it came to my food, which just made my eating disorder worse.'

The Cool For The Summer singer claimed that when she asked the companion to help her get treatment for her eating disorder after she had thrown up blood, they had turned down her request because she was not 'sick enough'.

Lovato continued: 'I didn't go back into treatment. Less than a year later, I ended up overdosing. I think it was just like I felt trapped. I felt like I couldn't get out of the situation and my way blowing everything up was relapsing on drugs and alcohol because they always said, if you use then we're out.'

As she reflected on the situation with Cooper, the singer admitted that she felt there had been a 'brainwashing' element to the way her life had been controlled.

She explained: "You were totally under the impression that if I don't listen to this person, who knows so much about recovery, I'm going to lose everything. So you put all of your trust in your faith into one person and then from that everyone around me listens to that one person and they go with it.

'If this person says, this is what it is and this is how it should be, then we listen to them and then it got to the point where like if they didn't like a chef that I had, they would say we think that you should try someone else. I just put all of my trust and faith into people around me that I think didn't have my best interest at heart.'

The Don't Forget singer also reflected on working on hit projects Sonny With A Chance and Camp Rock during what she described as the 'Golden Era' of Disney alongside the likes of Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers.

Opening up about the pressure the young child stars faced at the time, she claimed: 'There were expectations on you to be a role model, because all of a sudden you're thrust into that position whether you want to be or not.

'You can't be seen at a party with a red cup in your hand because it looks like it could be alcohol. There was this website called Ocean Up that would take all scandalous things that were happening to Disney actors and put it on there so we lived in fear of that website.'

Lovato continued: 'it wasn't really ever Disney saying, "You can't do this. You can't do that", but if something happened, there would be conversations. And I will say that the pressure of your replaceable was always there. Not necessarily ever said by Disney but they didn't have to.

'It was like Disney is the hottest thing for teenagers to be on and there are millions of kids that want to be in your place and so you have to be on your best behavior or else, there's the next girl in line that could book the movie that you're supposed to be in.'

Meanwhile, the singer shared further information about how she is moving forward as a sexual assault survivor.

In March 2021, the hitmaker opened up about how her first experience with sex was when she was raped at 15 and how years later she was 'violated' by her drug dealer the night of her 2018 overdose in her YouTube documentary series, Demi Lovato: Dancing With The Devil.

The star took time to clear up rumors that her abuser had been another prominent Disney star as she told Cooper: 'To be clear, like it wasn't anyone in the immediate Disney Circle, I've had people ask.

'I don't think it'd be anybody that anyone would guess but they were friends with someone on set and they'd come around.'

Lovato admitted that while she was still working through the trauma, she believed that 'time can heal wounds... just maybe not all of them.'

She continued: 'The more time that has gone by the easier, it is gotten, but there's still a deep sadness inside of me that someone took that from me at such a young age.

'And it was hard because this person was also around. They were also on Disney and so seeing them around was difficult and it really messed up my teenage years.'

The singer added: 'Finally, I went and got help for that and it's been something that I've worked on. But I've had other traumas happen and it kind of pushes those to the side a little bit.

'There are moments where I definitely will cry and just feel the sadness inside of me because that's healthy to do, rather than bottle it up. I will allow myself to have those moments of thinking "That was really sad what happened to you and you're a fighter. You can get through it."'

The full Call Her Daddy interview is available on Spotify.

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Demi Lovato on exploitation she faced as Disney star on Call Her Daddy

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The 30-year-old singer detailed the horrific treatment she overcame as a child star during a no-holds barred conversation with Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper.

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Joe Jonas spoken candidly about his experience on the Disney Channel:

"Being a part of a company like that (Disney) comes with certain expectations"

"We were just kids. We were frightened little kids"

"Because of our age, because of Disney... there were so many things throughout our career that we had to sugarcoat. It felt like we couldn't be creative"

"Being part of the Disney thing for so long will make you not want to be this perfect little puppet forever. Eventually, I hit a limit and thought 'screw this I'm just going to show people who I am'. I think that happened to a lot of us."

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As told to Jennifer Vineyard.
To some extent, I was used to growing up in public. I was a pastor's kid, so eyes were always on me, even then. I sat in the first pew of the church, and I had to wear a suit every Sunday, because my parents wanted me to be this role model that I didn't always want to be. I preferred going to punk-rock shows in small venues in New Jersey, where we grew up, wearing my jean jacket and all my band pins. That's how I fell in love with music, how I became obsessed with it. I'd stand there, watching the singer running around the stage, owning the crowd. I didn't even notice whatever else was happening onstage. All I could see was the singer.

But I had certain obligations at that age. If I ever didn't want to go to church on Sunday, or when I was trying to figure out what religion I wanted to be, or trying to understand spirituality, I would always have to deal with knowing that people were looking up to me. We eventually left our church, Assembly of God, when I was 14. A scandal had erupted involving stolen money, and it caused a big rift in the church. After that the concept of church really upset me for a long time. I mean, I believe in God, and that's a personal relationship that I have, but I'm not religious in any way.

I went to school until about seventh grade, before my parents decided to homeschool us. I sucked at math. Was pretty good with science, and I was great at music class. Big surprise. Music was always in the house. Our dad could play just about anything, and we started picking up instruments ourselves. When Nick was 7, he began singing everywhere-in the house, in the hair salon even, which is where he was discovered.

We never really had an idea of making music together, but years later when Nick was working on his debut album, Nicholas Jonas, Kevin and I genuinely wanted to write with him. So we wrote a song together in the living room called "Please Be Mine," which we thought would just be for Nick. But when our dad heard us, he said we should play it for David Massey, who was A&R-ing Nick's project at the time. He had signed a lot of brother bands-Oasis, Good Charlotte-and when we went in and sang the song for him, he told us he wanted to sign us as a group.

We weren't put together by some Svengali but were definitely thrown into it. Especially Nick, who was only 12 (I was 15 and Kevin was 17), and he had to make all these big decisions about whether he wanted to be in a band or work solo or work with his brothers. Luckily, he was cool with working with us.

It took about two years before we released our first record, It's About Time, in 2006. We were working on it for so long, and our dad had to drive us to the recording studio in the city every day. I'll never forget our first concert: We were named J3-and we hated the name. It felt like something a boy band would be called. I remember turning to my brothers before that show and saying, "Do you want our name to be J3 for the rest of our lives?" When we got onstage, I was the one to announce to the crowd, "Hey, we're the Jonas Brothers." Nice and simple.

For a few years, my two brothers, our father, our backup band, and I drove around in a van from city to city, playing any venue that would have us-schools, churches, bat mitzvahs-while our mother stayed at home to take care of our youngest brother, Frankie. Those early touring years were rough. We opened up for the Veronicas, who had a club crowd, and we had to prove to those crowds that we could really play. Show them that we're real musicians. It was always a struggle because every single night we were walking into hate. Sometimes people flipped us off, threw water bottles at us.

Everything completely changed when Disney entered the picture. They were geared toward a younger market, and we had a younger audience, so we started doing some Disney concerts, Disney Christmas concerts, and Disney roller-coaster openings. Then we made a music video for a cover song that we initially didn't want to do because we hadn't written it, called "Year 3000," exclusively for Disney, which led them to start playing the song on Radio Disney and the video on the Disney Channel. Before we knew it, our fan base had exploded.

We went from an opening act to headliners, first in half-theaters, then full theaters, then half-arenas to full arenas, all within a span of around six weeks. Playing the Texas state fair in 2007 was a turning point. There were 40,000 people, and we needed to get a helicopter in order to make it to the show because the traffic was so bad. I remember sitting in that helicopter, flying over all those cars, and thinking, This is really happening.

Disney is great at creating fame. They've done it with so many pop stars and young actors, from Hilary Duff to the High School Musical crew. Miley Cyrus played an already-famous pop star on a Disney show, Hannah Montana, and as we were starting to blow up, we got a boost by playing ourselves, as her favorite band on her own show. That was definitely our first major love shown by Disney, and I think it might have been a trial to see whether they should give us a show of our own, and they did. We got a sitcom called Jonas in which we played characters named Kevin, Joe, and Nick Lucas, members of an already-famous band.

But the thing about the show was that some of the writing on it was terrible. It just ended up being some weird slapstick humor that only a 10-year-old would laugh at. They took out the kissing scene that Nick had. I had to shave every day because they wanted me to pretend like I was 16 when I was 20 (when the show was done, I cut my hair off and grew as much of a beard as I could). We went along with it at the time, because we thought Disney was our only real shot, and we were terrified that it could all be taken away from us at any moment.

Being a part of a company like that comes with certain expectations. Not overtly, but there was a subtle vibe. We were working with Disney in 2007 when the Vanessa Hudgens nude-photo scandal happened. We heard that she had to be in the Disney offices for a whole day because they were trying to figure out how to keep her on lockdown. We'd hear execs talking about it, and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldn't ever mess up. We didn't want to disappoint anyone-our parents, our fans, our employers-so we put incredible pressure on ourselves, the kind of pressure that no teenager should be under.

We were just kids. That's the reality. We were frightened little kids. So you got all this responsibility that's foisted upon you and you're expected to be perfect. I went through media training, and I hated it. They'd teach you how to change the subject, whenever you were asked an uncomfortable question, by saying something like, "Oh, that reminds me of my dog! I have a great story about my dog!" Playing dumb is the best way of getting out of anything. We also had a strategy for who would take which kinds of questions. If it was a serious question, Nick would answer it. If it was lighthearted, Kevin would. Nick and I took questions related to our music and explaining what certain songs meant. We even did a Good Housekeeping story with our mom where we were wearing these horrible pastels. It makes me cringe just to think about it.

Disney made us more famous than we ever knew we could be. During concerts, when we'd want to play a new song or have an intimate moment, the screaming could be so overwhelming that we'd have to tell the crowd to calm down and enjoy the moment. It could get scary, too: We did a meet-and-greet in Spain, and like 100,000 people showed up and we ended up being chased through a shopping mall. It felt like a zombie apocalypse.

There were the moments when I'd walk into my hotel room only to find a girl I didn't know standing there. For the record, we didn't have the traditional rock-and-roll experience. We were kids working with Disney, so finding a girl in our hotel room didn't feel like an open invitation. This isn't 1986, and I'm not in a hair-metal band. It felt like a problem we had to solve without it getting us into trouble. There was this time in South America where a hotel staff member snuck his kid into my room. I don't know what they were hoping would happen, but security showed her out.

People like to imagine what it would be like on a tour bus, and they'd ask us, "It must just be a party all the time!" And definitely whenever we were on-camera, we were perceived as smiling and happy and upbeat, but there were times when all I wanted to do was lie in bed.

The hard thing about dealing with out-of-control fans is that you don't want to be the bad guy and you don't want to disappoint them, but sometimes that ends up happening. There used to be this group of fans who liked to camp outside our apartments in New York, and about a year ago, one of them asked us for a photo in the morning, and I said hi to him, and later that night, he was outside a restaurant that we had gone to with some friends. That was not cool. It felt like he was following us. So we all got in the car and he runs up, yelling through the window, "Can I get your picture? Please please please?" I said, "Look, man, I'm usually nice to you about this, but we're just having a night to ourselves, and if you can respect that, I'd really appreciate it." He started bawling and ran off to his friends. Two days later, it's in the tabloids that I was rude to a fan and made him cry and laughed in his face. It's funny, because I greet a ton of fans, but the one I said no to ended up making news.

The topic that dominated news coverage of us for a long time was the whole promise-ring thing. We couldn't escape it. It started when I was really young-I must have been 10 or 11. There's a program people do in some churches called True Love Waits, where you wait for marriage to have sex. Kevin and I decided to join-Nick tried it later. Fast-forward a few years, we've started playing music and we're working with Disney and we have these rings.

I remember this interview with this guy whose entire agenda was to focus on the rings. He kept pushing the subject, and when we insisted that we didn't want to talk about it, he told us, "I can write whatever I want," which terrified us. That's the thing: We didn't know any better, and we just wanted to make people happy. Now I know that I don't have to answer any questions I don't want to. Like, why do you even care about my 15-year-old brother's sex life?

But back then, we explained that we had made these promises to ourselves when we were younger. A few months later, it comes out that we're in some cult and that we're these little staged Mickey Mouse kids. People were coming up to us, saying, "Thank you so much, I'm waiting because you guys are, too!" And we just thought, No! That's not what we're about.

Because of our age, because of Disney, because of those rings, there were so many things throughout our career that we had to sugarcoat. If a lyric was slightly sexual, someone at the record company would tell us we had to change it. It could be the most innocent reference, like "I'm alone in a room with you," and it would have to go. It felt like we couldn't be creative, so we stopped listening to them and just started handing shit in.

We decided to take the rings off a few years ago. I lost my virginity when I was 20. I did other stuff before then, but I was sexually active at 20. I'm glad I waited for the right person, because you look back and you go, "That girl was batshit crazy. I'm glad I didn't go there."

What was that couple that was pretty famous from The Hills? Heidi and Spencer? I didn't want to become Heidi and Spencer, so I kept relationships quiet. I lived in a bubble of just me, my brothers, my band, and the people I went on tour with. That's how I ended up dating a lot of people in the business, because you relate to them, you're on the same schedule, and honestly, it was exciting. In the back of my mind, it felt special to date someone who was also famous. But I wanted to keep things quiet out of respect for my fans, because we had a large female audience, and I didn't want to rub my relationships in their faces. Some of the girls I dated just didn't get that.

I genuinely don't have any resentment against any of my exes. So I'm not going to disparage anyone I was in a relationship with-only I might put it in my music a little bit, and hint at it, and tease it here and there, just enough for the fans and the people who really know the story. But I'm not going to openly say, "Yeah, actually, this person is a bitch, and she did this to me." I don't feel the need to do that to sell records.

But I did date a lot. I used to sneak out and hook up with this one girl in her car, and some rumor came out along the lines of: "Teen pop star seen in the back of a car, in a parking lot, hooking up," and the write-up was kind of explicit. I kept thinking, Oh my God, there's going to be video, there's going to be photos. The girl was also in the business, and we thought we were screwed because we were both working with Disney. It would have been the worst thing we could think of happening to us. But nothing ever came out!

One relationship that meant a lot to fans was the one I had with Demi Lovato, who I've known for years. We had been friends forever, we were both Disney kids, and because we played a couple in the Camp Rock Disney Channel specials-and fans liked seeing us together-we eventually dated for a month. I really got to know her and got to see the ins and outs of what she was struggling with, like drug abuse. I felt like I needed to take care of her, but at the same time I was living a lie, because I wasn't happy but felt like I had to stay in it for her, because she needed help. I couldn't express any of that, of course, because I had a brand to protect.

It was an insane situation to be in. Things kept building up, and Demi ended up punching a girl in the face on a plane, because she thought the girl was blaming her for something. Everybody gasped, and the girl just started bleeding. That's when her team and her family told her, "You need to go into rehab." I remember being in South America, and fans immediately jumped to the conclusion that we kicked her off the 2010 tour, and they just hated on us for it.

Being a part of the Disney thing for so long will make you not want to be this perfect little puppet forever. Eventually, I hit a limit and thought, Screw all this, I'm just going to show people who I am. I think that happened to a lot of us. Disney kids are spunky in some way, and I think that's why Disney hires them. "Look, he jumped up on the table!" Five, six, ten years later, they're like, "Oh! What do we do?" Come on, guys. You did this to yourselves.

The first time I smoked weed was with Demi and Miley. I must have been 17 or 18. They kept saying, "Try it! Try it!" so I gave it a shot, and it was all right. I don't even smoke weed that often anymore. I was caught drinking when I was 16 or 17, and I thought the world was going to collapse. But I was in another country, and it was legal there. My 21st birthday, I fell down a flight of stairs. I was unconscious that time, and my whole team was scared to death that somebody was going to get a picture. Now I appreciate wine or a vodka-soda at the end of the day every once in a while.

When I was 20, I started dating Ashley Greene, and she was my first serious relationship. We were together for almost a year. I was living out in L.A. by myself, and at the end of the day, long distance didn't work. It's incredibly difficult. I did a cover story with Details acknowledging the relationship, and the day after it was on newsstands, we announced our breakup. That was just coincidence, but it's funny how that always happens, right? After Ashley, I took two or three years to just be single. I was hooking up and having fun. Now I'm with someone I really care about. We get each other.

And, yes, I've dated fans. I can't say that I've never put a foot in that world; there were times when I definitely took advantage of the opportunities I had. I remember I invited a fan to a movie, and we just made out the entire time. I don't even remember what the movie was about. I must have been 16 or so. Afterward, I was kind of freaking out, because I thought she'd go public and the whole world would find out. Luckily, she never did, I think because she assumed there'd be another meet-up down the road.

There were days when I wanted to give up sometimes. When it all felt too overwhelming and exhausting. But my brothers helped me get through a lot. I mean, we've only canceled two or three shows in our entire career. There were times when we definitely performed while sick because there was so much riding on it. All we'd have to do when one of us wasn't feeling well was say, "I need you to take this chorus." There was never even a question. It was always: "Okay, I got you."

It made us closer, being in this strange juggernaut together. I'm the middle child, so I've always been the bridge. I can relate to both really well. Nick and I are athletic, we bond over sports. Kevin and I were always close, but we don't see each other as much since he got married. We were just three brothers facing all this insanity together. Whenever any one of us got too cocky, we'd remind each other that this shit wasn't handed to us, we'd remind each other of all the people who hated on us from the beginning, who didn't believe we were any good. We used that as motivation to get us going and keep us going.

Given all that, performing with two other people, especially if they're your brothers, can be difficult. We all brought different ideas to the table when we wrote music together, and they didn't always coincide-one person wants to write a happy song, one person wants to write a sad song, and I might just want to write a song about taking a walk down the beach. So in 2010, around the time that Nick was doing his side project, Nick Jonas & the Administration, I decided to take some time on my own to experiment and go in a new direction. And it happened organically. I was creating music, which turned into recording music on my own, which turned into thinking about what it would feel like to perform those songs onstage.

One of my biggest career disappointments happened a few years ago, when I made a solo album that never saw the light of day. I recorded more than a dozen songs with a guy named Robert Schwartzman, who's the lead singer of Rooney, and the album was kind of Hall & Oates-y. Had a Freddie Mercury vibe (he's one of my biggest influences). I handed the songs in, and Hollywood Records was like, "This doesn't work." They said the songs were too weird and sounded like demos. The record company wanted me to use a team of Disney hit-makers-the people who wrote with Selena Gomez and Miley a couple of years ago. But it felt so fake to me. I called my manager and said, "I really want to slam my head into a wall right now."

We reached out to some of the biggest producers in the business, Rob Knox and Danja, for the solo album that actually got released, called Fastlife. There was a track with Lil Wayne on which he said the word bitch, and when I heard the album was going to have a parental-advisory label because of it, half of me was thinking, Sweet! People are going to think I'm a badass. The other half thought, That's going to alienate a lot of fans in Middle America. I'm not saying that's the sole reason why the album ultimately didn't do as well as my previous records had. But I think there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and I think it was rushed, and I couldn't speak up because I was scared to. They wanted me to be this Justin Timberlake clone. Even one of the heads of Hollywood Records said, "He's the new Justin Timberlake!"

After that, it was back to being with the Jonas Brothers, the "boy band." I'm not offended that everyone would think we were a boy band; I like some boy-band music. Even yesterday, somebody said, "You still dance, right?" and I said, "I never did that." But I can see why people saw us that way. We largely had a teen audience, and we've been on teen-pop magazines where you'd have to cuddle puppies. We wanted to be perceived as a cool band, one that plays its own instruments and writes its own songs, but a lot of people didn't notice that. Radio stations would be like, "Whoa! Really? you brought guitars? Why?" All I could think was, You're kidding, right?

The Jonas Brothers' breakup was going on for a lot longer than a lot of people thought. We hit a place where we just weren't jelling on the same things, and we didn't want to become a band that was worried about the fact that people didn't understand how cool we were. The whole situation was breaking us up as a family, and we ultimately felt like we were holding each other back. I wanted to go sexier with a video, for example, and Kevin wasn't comfortable with that, for his reasons. I mean, he's married, and I get that. Nick also had a louder voice than me and Kevin when it came to music and major decisions-he took a leadership role in the band, which got to us after a while.

Things came to a head when we had a meeting where we thought we were going to talk about how to release our new music and it ended up shifting into this huge fight. That was the first time we were really honest with one another about a lot of stuff we weren't happy with. The fight got loud. I was screaming. When Nick presented the idea of closing a chapter and moving on, I freaked out. I didn't know whether to pick up and leave or just punch something, because I was furious. I'd spent so long working with my brothers on this band, and in my mind, it felt like we were just giving up. It didn't make sense to me.

But once I started peeling back the layers, I understood. There were a lot of dysfunctional things going on. The music was getting stale, too, because we'd write it and record it and then it would sit around for a long time. After that meeting, we took a night to think about things, met again, and nothing was resolved, so we decided to take a week and think about it. Then we canceled the tour. It would have been really tough for me to go on a last-hurrah tour. I didn't care about the money; I just wanted to figure out the right, healthy way for us to be good as a family.

We appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the breakup, because we thought that would be the professional way of explaining it and expressing our love to the fans-I think they felt they were owed an explanation. Some of them were mad that this was happening, but at the end of the day, we're trying to take care of ourselves as family. And that's fine. And that should be fine.

Now that I'm 24 and have control of my life, I'm going back to the drawing board. I've been through a shit-ton of stuff, but I'm genuinely excited because now I can go back to the studio with those people who I used to work with. I don't have to rely on anyone else's opinion, whether good or bad, and hear them say, "No, no, you can't go write with them. That's too weird for us." Because weird works. Look at Lorde.

*This article originally appeared in the December 9, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.

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news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

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The dark side of being a Disney princess revealed

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YOUNG, perfect and talented girls are fascinating - thanks to Disney's winning formula.

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7-years on, Demi finally revealed the reasoning behind her bizarre altercation with Alex Welch that occurred in 2010. She confessed that she punched Welch because she had revealed her adderall addiction to her management. Demi's confession reflects her refined image as a transparent and authentic star who is willing to discuss the low-points in her life rather than displaying just the glitz and glamour of stardom.

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I'm About To Beat This Bitch Up (Full Clip)

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Demi Lovato Opens Up About Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis

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Dancing with the Devil (2021) Music Video

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'Dancing with the Devil' is an extremely powerful and moving song both lyrically and visually. The music video is a re-enactment of the night of her near-fatal overdose. Although the video was shot 3-years later, Demi made sure she looked exactly how she did that night: the same clothing and ombre blonde hair. This makes for a very accurate portrayal. There is also a moment that shows Demi's drug dealer looming over her lifeless, naked body which refers to the sexual assault. At the end of the video, Demi brandishes her 'survivor' tattoo that is placed on neck, right where a tube was once inserted - the tube that saved her life. The video ends with a display of helplines for addiction and sexual assault. This shows that the video not only serves to re-create her near-death experience, but it is also intends to raise awareness and encourage others to seek help. The lyrics also add to the song emotionally as Demi describes the drugs as 'the enemy' and 'the devil.' The video received extremely positive feedback from fans who resonated with her story, either themselves or via family or friends.

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Demi's albums post-2010 reiterated her new image as a confident,  empowered, self-assured woman. Likewise, the albums represented her transition away from a young, innocent Disney star as they engage in a more mature R&B vibe and themes.

The album 'Unbroken' (2011) introduces some darker themes that relate to Demi's own personal struggles with bulimia, addiction and mental illness. Her song 'Skyscraper' does this in particular, presenting a major contrast to Demi's earlier 'Disney-esque' music. Moving past this 'child-friendly' music enabled Demi to shed light on some deeper issues that may not have been appropriate for Disney's young audience. Likewise, discussing her mental struggles cements Demi's image as a 'real' authentic person, making her more relatable to her fans who may be facing similar problems.

The album 'Confident' (2015) signifies Demi's newfound confidence and maturity as she increasingly displays more skin and makes explicit references to sex, men and bisexuality. This can be seen in the lyrics: 'sexy dirty love' and 'taste of the cherry.'

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In this interview with Alan Carr, Demi addresses the lyric "taste of the cherry" that sparked mass speculation over her sexuality. She neither confirmed nor denied her bisexual status, but she said that all her songs are "based off personal experiences" and that there is "nothing wrong with experimentation." This was the first time Demi hinted at her sexual fluidity, showing how she was becoming more confident in expressing her true queer self. This may inspire her fans to also express their true selves, particularly for those who are afraid to 'come out'.

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Demi Lovato Talks About Sexual Fluidity | Full Interview | Alan Carr: Chatty Man

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In particular, Demi's album 'Confident' embraced more provocative themes. Her hit song 'Cool For The Summer' displayed Demi's more sexy, sultry side, offering a more sexualised appearance. Not only does this allow Demi to display her confident image, but it also serves as a way to shed her previous Disney star persona and appeal to an older fan-base.

Likewise, the music video and lyricism further rejects Demi's innocent image by displaying themes of sex and girl-on-girl action. For example, the infamous lyric "taste of the cherry" makes an explicit reference to lesbianism which sparked mass speculation amongst fans about Demi's sexuality.

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Demi's newest album 'Revamped' reimagines her older pop hits into rock covers including 'Cool For the Summer', 'Heart Attack' and 'Sorry Not Sorry.' Reviving her older iconic hits enables Demi to embrace her new image as a punk rock musician while maintaining some familiarity with her previous audience. From a commercial perspective, 'revamping' fan-favourite hits effectively doubles Demi's audience by enticing not only her previous fan-base through nostalgia, but a newer rock audience through genre.

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Demi Lovato is Using her Voice to De-stigmatize Mental Illness

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Singer Demi Lovato is a vocal advocate for the de-stigmatization of mental illness and a champion of many other causes.

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TROUBLED singer Demi Lovato was rushed to hospital last night with a suspected drug overdose... making the ex-Disney star the latest veteran of the entertainment network to run into serious trouble.

The 21-year-old former Camp Rock actress first checked into rehab when she was just 18 years old, and at one stage she reportedly took cocaine several times a day - even smuggling it onto to planes rather than go without her fix.

She managed to stay clean for six years but revealed she had relapsed in recent weeks in a song called Sober, which has become particularly poignant now.

And Demi is far from the former Disney child star to go off the rails in adulthood, with Shia LaBeouf, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan (yes, that's where they really started) among the stars who struggled after finding fame with the network.

Other child stars, like Macaulay Caulkin and the Jacksons, have also endured public meltdowns after reaching adulthood, but there seems to be a high proportion of ex-Disney stars to suffer the same fate.

Although it's in no way suggested that Disney itself is responsible for what happened to the stars, the fact that many had early careers at the entertainment giant has led people to nickname it the 'Disney Curse'.

So why do so many former young performers have problems further down the line?

Psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos told Sun Online that part of this could be to do with the huge pressure placed on child stars before they are ready to handle it.

She said: "Having fame means your self awareness is amplified, and once you've reached a certain level of fame and notoriety, it's gets very validating.

"When that fame begins to fade away, it's very hard and you see that as a rejection of who you are and your work and your character.

"You can't ever go back to being normal because you will always have that notoriety; you always have that expectation. It's hard for you to navigate social interactions."

Dr Linda also points to the strained relationships many child stars (including Demi, Britney and Lindsay) have with their parents.

She said: "A lot of famous kids have had public fall outs with their parents. The parents, whose main job it is to ensure mental and physical health of their kids, are also tasked with ensuring their kids work and make a lot of money. Sometimes the two are incompatible."

And another aspect is the vacuum that is created when child stars grow out of their roles while still being associated with them.

Linda says: "They had an identity they were able to profit from and get a sense of validation from. Once that changes, you don't have that same value and you feel it.

"And that is why we see young stars becoming hyper-sexualised - they want to be taken seriously as adults.

"They're like 'look I was a young star but now I'm doing a photoshoot in my underwear' so you see the need to be acknowledged as adults and having value in their own right.

"We love young kids when they're little and on TV but this weird thing happens where we feel uncomfortable about them growing up."

In Demi Lovato's case, the star first started doing drugs aged 17, blaming her addict and "abusive" father as the reason she ended up getting hooked.

But she is far from the only ex-Disney actor to struggle with the trappings of fame after leaving the network.

Britney Spears

Once a Mouseketeer in The Mickey Mouse Club, Britney is now best known for being one of the world's biggest pop sensations.

But in 2007, after a divorce from Kevin Federline, Britney endured a famous public meltdown which saw her shave her head and move into rehab.

A friend told E! news: "All she wanted was to raise a family and find pleasure in the small things... she needed an escape from her celebrity existence."

Britney was soon out again but, desperate and cut off from seeing her children, things didn't improve until she was stretchered out of her home and taken to hospital by her mum.

Today, she has left the buzz-cut era well behind her and is a a happy and healthy star once again - as everyone hopes Demi Lovato will be.

Zac Efron

Best known for playing Troy in High School Musical, Zac Effron was 18 when he became a household name.

But after leaving Disney, he too ended up in rehab.

In 2014, he sought help for an alleged cocaine addiction, and has since claimed that it was the social aspects of his celebrity life which drove him down that dark road.

When he appeared on Running Wild with Bear Grylls, he said of his young fame: "You know it was just so quick, it's shocking, you know what I mean.

"The challenging part was never the work, it was sort of the in between work, the social aspects outside of it.

"You spend a lot of time in your house going crazy, you know pretty soon you need a social lubricant."

Miley Cyrus

The poster girl for post-Disney transformations, the world was stunned to watch as Hannah Montana star Miley ditched her PC-persona in favour of a far more sexualised stage presence.

The crotch-grabbing, twerking, weed-smoking Miley Cyrus of today is a far cry from the innocent 13-year-old actor everyone knew from the Disney channel.

And although she came off far better than many of her fellow child stars, Miley has been very vocal about the lasting effects of becoming famous so young.

"It's a lot to put on a kid: to have them have to get their makeup done and then also balance school and then also have me dress up in a wig," she has said.

Miley has also revealed that it was hard for her to be famous both as her Hannah Montana character and as herself, as a singer in her own right.

"I think that's probably what's a little bit wrong with me now," she added. "I mark that up to doing some extreme damage in my psyche as an adult person."

While filming, 12-hour days became the norm and, as a child, she developed anxiety attacks and nausea from the stresses of work.

She also told Marie Claire: "I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long."

Lee Thompson Young

One of the most tragic stories of past Disney actors, Lee Thompson Young started his acting career in 1998 series The Famous Jett Jackson, when he was just 15, and then appeared in the film Johnny Tsunami a year later.

He went on star in detective drama Rizzoli & Isles, but he failed to turn up for filming in August 2013.

When police were called to check on him in his LA apartment, he was found dead.

The 29-year-old had been battling depression before his death, and had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf is another ex-Disney star who went through a troublesome period when he left the network.

The Even Stevens actor was arrested back in 2014 and later charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass at Studio 54 theatre.

After his arrest, the 32-year-old joined an outpatient programme for alcoholism, and has since staged a number of bizarre public appearances which have left fans concerned about his well-being.

In 2014, he appeared at the premier of his movie Nymphomaniac wearing a paper bag on his head which had the words "I am not famous anymore" scrawled in large letters over his face.

Later that same year he spent a night in jail after being disruptive while watching a Broadway show, and was arrested again in 2017 for disorderly conduct, obstruction and public drunkenness.

A video which emerged of his racist rant at police officers at the time pushed the former Disney star to apologise on Twitter, where he described the incident as a "new low" and said he was newly committed to sobriety.

Lindsay Lohan

After modelling as a child, Lindsay made her acting breakthrough in 1998 Disney film The Parent Trap, when she was just 12.

She followed up with a string of high-profile film appearances, including Mean Girls, before returning to Disney in 2005 with Herbie: Fully Loaded.

However, her life has been peppered with legal run-ins and controversies ever since a booze-fuelled car crash in 2007, and she has had a notably sour relationship with her father which may have contributed to her turmoil.

Lowlights include the party girl's subsequent hour-long stay in prison for cocaine possession and drink driving, and when she was fitted with an alcohol-monitoring device as a condition of her bail.

In 2010 she then earned a two-week prison sentence for failing to attend her court-ordered weekly alcohol education classes, and eventually ended up in rehab after leaving jail.

Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez was one of Disney's most recognisable faces, starring in Wizards of Waverly Place and the Princess Protection Programme.

But when she grew up, she too had a rocky ride.

Gomez, 26, spent two weeks in a rehab facility back in early 2014 at treatment centre in Arizona which specialises in treating young people with addiction and trauma problems.

Her representative later revealed the star was suffering from Lupus, an autoimmune disease, and that she entered rehab for chemotherapy to treat the illness.

A source previously claimed that Selena also had other issues when she checked into the treatment facility, according to Radar Online.

Selena Gomez made a huge name for herself as a Disney child star. A source said: "Her friends and family became increasingly worried that there might be a serious problem with Selena.

"Particularly, her parents. The partying was, at times, wild.

"They wanted to help her-and they very much encouraged her to go to rehab. Others very close to her also urged her to seek professional help."

She was also reportedly dabbling with marijuana and was experimenting with prescription drugs such as Xanax and Ambien - and ended up back in rehab in September 2016, after a high-profile spat with former flame Justin Bieber.
Linda's podcast is called The Psychology Behind with Dr Linda Papadopoulos and is available from iTunes, Audioboom and all usual podcast outlets.

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From Selena Gomez to Miley Cyrus - why so many former child Disney stars have suffered mental health breakdowns, eating disorders and suicide attempts

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TROUBLED singer Demi Lovato was rushed to hospital last night with a suspected drug overdose... making the ex-Disney star the latest veteran of the entertainment network to run into serious tro...

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Although Demi publicly expresses her gratitude towards Disney for birthing her successful career, it can be noted that in recent years Demi has changed her tune. She has spoken in various interviews and podcasts about the pressure of upholding a 'squeaky-clean' image due to her association with Disney. This meant that as a teenager, she would deliberately 'tone down' her private life in order to maintain her image as a respectable role model. She has also spoken out about the excessive workload that led to an unhealthy mindset: "if you are going to work me like an adult, I am going to party like an adult." This mindset signals a rebellion against the controls that were being imposed on her from such a young age.

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It could be said that the Lovato family were destined for fame as they have been entangled in the media and entertainment industries for quite some time. Demi's mother Dianna de la garza (formerly Dianna Lovato) has worked as an actress, producer and more recently, an author. Likewise Patrick Lovato, Demi's father, dabbled in the music industry. However, it is safe to say that Demi elevated the family name to household status.

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Demi at the National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day (2013)

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In the eyes of the public, Demi was seen as a confident, kind-hearted, talented icon and a respectable role model for young girls. But behind closed doors, Demi was beginning to spiral out of control.

In the documentary (linked above), Lovato's team refer to '2010-Demi' as angry, difficult to be around and manipulative. Demi's rebellious outburst can be attributed to various mental illnesses; it also coincided with her use of drugs. Lovato began drinking and experimenting with drugs at the age of 13. At the age of 17, while working on Disney Channel, Demi was introduced to cocaine and started using regularly. Unlike other Disney stars such as Miley Cyrus, whose 'wild phase' was very publicly documented, Demi was living two separate lives. Publicly, she played up to the 'squeaky-clean' Disney star image but privately, she was a crazed 'party girl'.

In retrospect, it was inevitable that these two personas were eventually going to cross paths and 2010 was this pinpoint moment that marked her public 'breakdown phase'.

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50 seconds · Clipped by Madeleine Thomson · Original video "Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated - Official Documentary" by Demi Lovato

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Demi auditioned to join the cast of 'Sonny with a Chance' in 2007 and made her first appearance in 2009.  She played the lead role as Sonny Monroe, a talented 15-year old who had a passion for comedy and writing music. The television series followed Sonny's journey of newfound fame and the struggles that arise alongside this. This onscreen storyline was very fitting, and somewhat ironic, as it mirrors Demi's own rising fame that was occurring offscreen.

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Demi Lovato Audition for Sonny With A Chance

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In this article, Demi's father Patrick blames the pressures of Disney for his daughter's sudden outburst towards Welch. This echoes dominant notions that pits Disney as the cause behind many Disney starlets falls from grace.

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The back-up dancer at the centre of Demi Lovato's aeroplane meltdown has been identified at red-head Alex Welch.

The 21-year-old, who appeared in season three of America's Best Dance Crew with Beat Freaks, was on tour with the Jonas Brothers Live in Concert Tour when the confrontation occurred last week.

And pictures taken after the incident have emerged showing Welch sporting what appears to be bruised eye.

Lovato, 18, is understood to have instigated the altercation while on an aeroplane in Peru after a night out.

After the scuffle, the Disney star checked into rehab for 'emotional and physical' issues.

Alex, who has also performed with Pink, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, took to her Facebook page today, saying: 'Not going to answer any questions. Thank you.'

More details of the fight have come to light, with a source telling People magazine: 'As she did on most nights off, Demi invited her band, dancers and her parents to dinner.

'Afterwards, she broke off with a very small group.'

The next day, tour managers and Demi's stepfather, Eddie De La Garza, questioned Demi about the night having been informed that they had been partying.

'When tour management found out about this, they talked to the people involved, including Demi', says the source.

'Demi reacted badly and perceived that someone on tour had told on her.'

She then confronted the girl in question whilst the group were on an aeroplane and there was a 'short, physical altercation' that was 'one-sided'.

According to Lovato's camp, the teen star realised she needed to take responsibility for her behaviour and decided to seek help.

The teen's father Patrick is blaming the pressures of Hollywood for his daughter's problems.

'There are a lot of pressures,' he told U.S. website RadarOnline. 'That is one of the things I worried about when she signed with Disney. It's just going to happen.'

However, Patrick confessed he has not seen or spoken to his 18-year-old daughter for a while.

'It's been a couple of months,' he admitted. 'I've had cancer, I've been in the hospital for two months and I just got out. She hasn't visited, she's been too busy, she's been way too busy.'

A representative for the star announced on Monday she was leaving her tour with the Jonas Brothers to seek 'medical treatment for emotional and physical issues she has dealt with for some time.'

Lovato has struggled with body-image issues in the past, but her team has dismissed any claims that she is being treated for drugs.

'Demi has decided to take personal responsibility for her actions and seek help,' the spokesperson added.

'Demi and her family ask that the media please respect their privacy during this difficult time. She regrets not being able to finish her tour, but is looking forward to getting back to work in the near future.'

Lovato's mother Dianna, her step-father and manager Eddie De La Garza and her half sister Madison, who appears on Desperate Housewives, looked grim as they returned to their Los Angeles home yesterday.

The Jonas Brothers said they had no plans to replace Demi for the remaining six days of the tour.

A source told E! Online that Demi may have found it difficult to tour alongside her ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas, who is now dating Twilight star Ashley Greene.

'After she split with Joe, it was just a whole bunch of drama, very awkward,' the source said. 'Everyone tried to be professional, but you could tell it was wearing down Demi.

'It was a taboo subject to bring up, but clearly she wasn't over Joe.'

The source added that the stress of the tour and promoting movie Camp Rock 2 may have been too much for the young star.

'The [Jonas] boys got a break after the tour, but Demi went a non-stop promo campaign for Camp Rock 2 and was pushing the single for that movie. It really was too much ask of a girl that young. She just couldn't handle it.'

'I think Demi has a lot of issues she is dealing with, but at the source of them all is a great deal of stress.

Lovato had a tough childhood, dropping out of school after being bullied.

Back in September, she discussed her past on TV talk show The View.

'I had no idea why [I was being bullied],' Demi told Barbara Walters on the U.S. daytime show.

'People would say: "They're just jealous girls." But you don't want to hear that - you want to know a reason, so you just keep pinning it on yourself.

'I wasn't going to be the girl who was like "Oh they're just jealous of me."'

She wrote more about her experiences in an October letter on the PACER's Teens Against Bullying website.

'Many people think of bullying as getting beat up in school, but it is so much more than that,' she wrote.

'For me it was all of the verbal harassment I had to deal with. People say sticks and stones may break your bones but names can never hurt you, but that's not true. Words can hurt. They hurt me. Things were said to me that I still haven't forgotten.'

Meanwhile, Demi's hit Disney show Sonny With A Chance, is still on a scheduled hiatus, but Disney today backed their star.

'We support Demi's decision to put her health first and we send her our best wishes,' a Disney spokesperson said.

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Pictured: The teen dancer Demi Lovato 'attacked in aeroplane fight' before checking into rehab

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Alex Welch, 21, who appeared in season three of America's Best Dance Crew with Beat Freaks, was on tour with the Jonas Brothers Live in Concert Tour when the confrontation occurred last week.

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Demi Lovato staggered out of a club in West Hollywood in the last photos taken before the singer's overdose.

The 25-year-old star was spotted being helped out of the Warwick nightclub by rapper G-Eazy and a friend in the early hours of Saturday.

Just three days later the star collapsed at her home after reportedly taking heroin.

Her life was only saved when a quick-thinking friend administered the heroin antidote Narcan - which they reportedly had on stand-by -after finding her unconscious just before noon on Tuesday.

Leaving the nightclub at 2.30am bleary-eyed Demi was unsteady on her silver stilettos as G-Eazy held her by the hand while another friend held her arms.

She is rumoured to be dating the rapper just three weeks after he split from singer Halsey.

According to Radar Online, the late-night jaunt showed that Demi had "started drinking again".

She was dressed down for her night on the tiles in a pair of black skinny jeans and a denim jacket.

The Radar Online report claimed Demi had cut off ties with her family and friends and had "gone off the rails" again.

"She's completely dropped her family members, friends and everyone in the sober community, including all of the people at CAST Recovery Center," a source said.

On Sunday, Demi forgot the words to her song Sober live on stage.

On Tuesday Demi was rushed to hospital after she was found unconscious by paramedics at her Hollywood Hills Home.

The singer, who has long documented battle with sobriety, was last seen performing at the California Mid State Fair where she struggled to remember the lyrics to the track that admits her relapse.

In footage shared by a fan, Demi is seen looking emotional as she takes to the mic.

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Demi Lovato staggers out of Hollywood nightclub in last photos before overdose

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The bleary-eyed singer left a nightclub in the early hours with her rumoured boyfriend G-Eazy

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'A new chapter, a new life and a completely new Demi'

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'A new chapter, a new life and a completely new Demi'

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In this interview from 2015, Demi says that her new album 'Confident' represents "a new chapter, a new life and a completely new Demi." She claims that, prior to this album, she always kept her image as a role model in mind, which meant that she would often select a certain type of music that would please people. She says that her earlier music did not reflect the "badass" she is. Therefore, this new album intended to display Demi's authentic and mature self in a fun and unserious way.

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Demi Lovato Previews Upcoming Album; Reveals "New Chapter, New Demi" | On Air with Ryan Seacrest

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In June 2018, Demi began drinking heavily while on tour in Europe. After she returned home, she relapsed on drugs and was introduced to crack and heroin. Some might argue that Lovato was reverting back to her unstable, self-destructive image from 2010...

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Demi Smoking Heroin (image from Dancing with the Devil Documentary, 2021)

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Demi Lovato has reflected on the ongoing process of healing after she said she was raped during her teenage years.

Demi, who uses she/they pronouns, shot to fame after appearing in several Disney Channel movies and TV shows throughout her adolescence.

From the age of 15, Demi scored huge roles in the hit series As the Bell Rings and Sonny With a Chance, and also starred in several Disney Channel original movies, like Camp Rock and Princess Protection Program.

Now, during a guest appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast this week, Demi reflected on the harrowing experience once more.

"In your documentary Dancing With the Devil, you reveal your virginity was taken from you," Alex said. "Yes," Demi replied. "You were raped," the host said, to which Demi agreed.

You can listen to Demi Lovato's full Call Her Daddy podcast episode here.

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Demi Recalled Having To Face The Person Who Allegedly Raped Her As A Teenager Because He Was "Also On Disney"

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Demi's latest comments come a year after she revealed that the person who raped her - who was also on Disney - "never got in trouble for it" and "never got taken out of the movie they were in." Note: This article contains mention of rape, drug abuse, and eating disorders.

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The singer, 28, was the subject of a New York Times editorial on Tuesday, ahead of her upcoming YouTube documentary premiering next week

The article describes some of the more harrowing content in the documentary

She tells how the drug dealer who gave her heroin on the night of her 2018 drug overdose 'sexually assaulted her, then left her close to death'

She revealed she was raped by an actor while starring in Camp Rock as a teen, however did not specify what film the actor was starring in

Also mentioned are some of the extreme health problems that Demi, 28, experienced as a result of that night

Last month she shared a trailer for Dancing With The Devil , her upcoming four-part documentary

Demi Lovato has revealed that her heroin dealer sexually assaulted her on the night of her 2018 overdose and says she lost her virginity to rape as a teen.

The actress and singer, 28, was the subject of a New York Times editorial on Tuesday, ahead of her upcoming documentary premiering next week.

Dancing With The Devil, which comes just ahead of Lovato's next album of the same name, premieres on YouTube on March 23rd.

The Times article describes some of the more harrowing content in the documentary, including how the drug dealer who gave her heroin on the night of her July 2018 drug overdose 'sexually assaulted her, then left her close to death.'

She explained: 'I didn't just overdose. I was taken advantage of.'

The documentary tells how Lovato was given heroin 'laced with fentanyl' and the dealer 'ended up getting her really high and leaving her for dead'.

Lovato explains: 'When they found me, I was naked, blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me.'

She tells how hospital staff asked her afterwards if the encounter had been consensual. She says: 'There was one flash that I had of him on top of me. I saw that flash and I said "yes".

'It wasn't until a month after the overdose that I realized, "you weren't in any state of mind to make a consensual decision".'

She also revealed that she had lost her virginity when she was raped aged just 15, as she was assaulted while she was 'hooking up' with her attacker - an actor - during her rise to fame as a Disney star in Camp Rock in 2008.

On the teen sexual assault, she said: 'I lost my virginity in a rape. I called that person back a month later and tried to make it right by being in control, and all it did was just make me feel worse. We were hooking up...

'I said, 'Hey, this is not going any farther, I'm a virgin and I don't want to lose it this way'... And that didn't matter to them, they did it anyways...

'I internalized it and I told myself it was my fault, because I still went in the room with him, I still hooked up with him.'

Demi then confirmed that her attacker was a fellow actor - although only described them as being in 'a movie', not in Camp Rock.

She penned: 'You know what, f**k it, I'm just gonna say it: my #MeToo story is me telling somebody that someone did this to me, and they never got in trouble for it. They never got taken out of the movie they were in.'

She admitted she was scared to speak out about what happened to her and admitted she was unsure whether she would be believed and reflected on Rihanna's assault from her boyfriend Chris Brown and the leaked images of her bloodied face.

She said: 'Honestly, ever since I watched Rihanna and her pictures get leaked after the Chris Brown incident, I was very uncomfortable with even more of my story playing out in the press and also people maybe not believe me.'

Demi revealed the traumatic incident sparked her self-harm and eating disorder. She added: 'Here was the thing. I was part of that Disney crowd that publicly said they were waiting till marriage...

'Then I had to see that person all the time, and so I stopped eating and coped in other ways - cutting, throwing up, whatever. 'My bulimia got so bad that I started throwing up blood for the first time.'

Also mentioned are some of the extreme health problems that Demi experienced as a result of her overdose, which were also shared in last month's trailer for Dancing With The Devil, her upcoming four-part documentary.

Her overdose brought on a host of problems, including three strokes, a heart attack and organ failure, along with pneumonia, asphyxiation, brain damage and lasting vision problems that have made it impossible for her to drive.

She told how the overdose left with blind spots in her vision field, and how she could not see her sister during a bedside visit, TMZ reported.

'It was interesting how fast I adapted,' she said of the vision loss, according to the Times. 'I didn't leave myself time to really feel sad about it. I just was like, "How do I fix it?"'

She also discussed other areas of both her private and public life.

Notably, she said she feels like she 'dodged a bullet' by calling off her engagement with ex Max Ehrlich last September.

'I feel like I dodged a bullet because I wouldn't have been living my truth for the rest of my life had I confined myself into that box of heteronormativity and monogamy,' Lovato said, again referencing her queer identity.

'And it took getting that close to shake me up and be like, wow, you really got to live your life for who you really are.'

Additionally, more was shared about Demi's friendship with both Ariana Grande, who will appear on her upcoming album, as well as their star manager Scooter Braun.

In a separate interview, Braun explained how Ariana was instrumental in getting her signed with him, at a time after her overdose when she wasn't sure how to proceed in her career.

'I saw that she was scared, like, no one's going to take me on,' Scooter told the Times of his initial meeting with Demi.

'I asked Ariana's opinion and she said, let me go to coffee with her. And by the time she got home, she texted me: You have to take her on, this is my friend. I want to know she's safe.'

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Demi Lovato shares her drug dealer 'sexually assaulted' her in 2018

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The 28-year-old singer was the subject of a New York Times editorial on Tuesday, ahead of her upcoming YouTube documentary premiering next week.

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During this interview on the 'Ellen DeGeneres Show' Demi revealed one of the touching reasons behind her new look. She said that cutting her hair was symbolic of letting go or cutting away (physically and metaphorically) years of trauma. She also revealed that she would spend years hiding behind her hair, particularly when she was struggling with her eating disorder. Therefore, her hair cut signals the freedom and authenticity she now feels.

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Demi Lovato Reveals Emotional Reason Why She Cut Off All Her Hair

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In this image, Demi displays her 'free' tattoo. This is very symbolic and reflective of her present self and her development - she nows feels free to express her true queer self.

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Following her transformation, Demi revealed something very personal to her fans on the first episode of her new podcast '4D with Demi Lovato.' She came out as non-binary and revealed that she will be changing her pronouns to 'they/them.' She said that these pronouns best represent her gender fluidity and allows her to feel her most authentic self.

Given Demi's high public status and notoriety, her existence in the LGBTQ+ could provide the necessary attention to the struggles and discrimination that this community often face.

However, in 2022 Demi reasserted her she/her pronouns in addition to they/them. She did this because she said explaining they/them pronouns to people became "absolutely exhausting." This shows that, although Demi is world-renowned star, she is not immune to the difficulties that this community face on a daily basis. We can only hope that her platform can serve to educate people regarding this issue.

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38 seconds · Clipped by Madeleine Thomson · Original video "4D With Demi Lovato - Guest: Alok Vaid-Menon" by Demi Lovato

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In 2020, Lovato continued her philanthropic work as she announced her new charity, the Mental Health Fund, which provided people with free 24/7 crisis counselling during the covid-19 pandemic. The charity raised an astonishing $2 million in donations within the first two days. This maintains Lovato's image as a keen advocate and an inspirational star, someone who audiences can continue to look up to. This has made it possible to overlook her past mistakes as she continues to do good in the world.

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‘Asking for help is not a sign of weakness’: Demi Lovato starts Mental Health Fund

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To help people get through the psychological impacts of COVID-19, the singer has started a new mental health charity

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In 2017, Demi received the Artistic Award of Courage at the Open Mind Gala for her advocacy in raising awareness for mental illness. She said the work she'd like to do in the world has "only just begun."

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Demi's album Holy Fvck (2022) marked her return to her old punk rock roots. Although Demi has always expressed her love for this genre of music, she has previously strayed away from it and instead entered the world of pop and R&B. Although her first two albums ('Don't Forget', 2008 and 'Here We Go Again', 2009) had some punk-rock undertones, she felt forced to turn to pop music in order to make radio hits. Reflecting on her pop era, she says she tried 'too hard' to be sexy and felt uncomfortable dancing in leotards and stilettos.

Now, embracing her new look and sexual identity, there seemed no better time to introduce her new punk rock image. Recently, Demi described feeling empowered singing this new album as she has regained parts of herself that she once lost.

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Demi Lovato: 'HOLY FVCK', Survivor's Guilt, and Falling In Love | Apple Music

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Today, Demi appears to be her happiest and most content self which is inspiring to witness, particularly for her fans who have followed her turbulent journey. Lovato serves to present a key message of redemption - if Demi Lovato can do it, I can do it - demonstrating to her fans how they too can rebuild themselves to success and prosperity after a downfall.

Fan comments under Demi's recent Instagram post:

"Your joy brings me joy"

"You are so happy omfg this makes me so happy"

"Such warm smiles!!"

"Happy looks so good on you"

"Look at you living your best blessed life. You're truly GLOWING"

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Lovato's new punk-rock and gothic image is reflected in recent magazine covers, such as this, in which she appears confident in her own skin. As stated in the cover, it appears Lovato has "found her rhythm" in her new punk-rock era.

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Following Demi's overdose, her fans started the hashtag #HowDemiHasHelpedMe on Twitter. This urged Lovato fans to share stories on how Demi has positively impacted their life. As well as showing support for Demi, her fans were able to create a forum to display their vulnerability and offer support to each other. The hashtag went viral, showing how celebrities can, advertently or inadvertently, provide necessary attention to stigmatised topics such as mental health.

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Singer and actress Demi Lovato's reported hospitalization Tuesday after an apparent drug overdose has inspired droves of fans to share stories of her impact on their lives.

Lovato's fan base, often called Lovatics, has even started a hashtag:
#HowDemiHasHelpedMe.
Here are some of those stories:

Stone cold helped me when I was going through a breakup
sorry not sorry helped me become unapologetically myself
Skyscraper brought me out of depression
Confident made me feel like I could take on the world
Really dont care helped me remember my worth. #HowDemiHasHelpedMe
- Caity 🌻 (@afreckledfemme) July 25, 2018

#HowDemiHasHelpedMe
Her music helped me realized that it was okay to be broken. Her being honest about her problems helped me see I could be something other then a mental illness. I love you Demi
- Lexi Reid (@princessofsinss) July 25, 2018

Lovato on Tuesday night was recovering, a representative said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

"Demi is awake and with her family who want to express thanks to everyone for the love, prayers and support," her representative said. "Some of the information being reported is incorrect and they respectfully ask for privacy and not speculation as her health and recovery is the most important thing right now."

Celebrities Twitter Demi Lovato drug overdose lovatics

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Demi Lovato Fans Are Sharing Stories Of How She Helped Them

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The hashtag #HowDemiHasHelpedMe has taken off on Twitter since the singer's hospitalization for a reported drug overdose.

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She made her name as a bright and breezy Disney star, but it seems those days are over for troubled teen Demi Lovato.

The singer and actress was almost unrecognisable as she emerged from an Illinois rehab facility for the first time since checking into the centre in mid-October.

The 18-year-old stepped out with a new darker hair colour, lashings of goth-style lipstick and black nail varnish she headed into a movie theatre in Chicago over the Christmas holidays.

The star was on a brief release from rehab, where she has been receiving treatment for 'emotional and physical issues'.

She spent a few hours with her mother Dianna, step-father Eddie and her two sisters Dallas and Madison who had made the trip from their home in California to see her for the holiday.

She had been given a day pass, allowing her a few hours on Christmas day to leave the facility, but she had to return that evening to continue her treatment.

The usually polished and pretty star appeared to have dyed her hair a dark brown colour and was sporting dark brown lipstick for the occasion which she paired with a equally grungy clothing ensemble.

The young Sonny With A Chance starlet looked more rocker than Disney princess in black laced boots, patterned tights, a black dress and furry animal print jacket.

She also kept her face covered with large black sunglasses and a black hat.

Demi checked into the treatment centre in Illinois for 'physical and emotional issues' after lashing out at backup dancer Alex Welch and punching her in the face over a supposed misunderstanding.

Demi was on tour with the Jonas Brothers Live Tour when the confrontation occurred on a flight from Peru.

Alex, who has also performed with Pink, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, claims Lovato was upset because she had 'gotten in trouble' over antics on a night out.

Just last week the singer reached undisclosed financial settlement with 21-year-old Welch over the incident.

'The parties are satisfied and the dispute has been resolved amicably and completely,' Welch's attorney Donald Karpel told celebrity website TMZ.

Meanwhile, Demi is set to continue treatment at the facility into the New Year and has pushed back the release of her next album as a result.

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Troubled Demi Lovato banishes her Disney girl image as she emerges from rehab with a new gothic look

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She made her name as a bright and breezy Disney star, but it seems those days are over for troubled teen Demi Lovato. The singer and actress was almost unrecognisable as she emerged from an Illinois rehab facility for the first time since checking into the centre in mid-October.

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In 2011, after a history of drug abuse and self-harm, Demi Lovato entered rehab. There, she was diagnosed with bipolar depression, the depressive phase of bipolar disorder. In the years since, the 24-year-old has spoken about living with mental illness and is the spokesperson for the campaign Be Vocal, which encourages mental-health awareness and advocacy. Lovato recently executive produced a documentary on mental illness called Beyond Silence. In a Wednesday interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Lovato got personal about her fight for mental-health advocacy.

"I'm bipolar and proud, and I live well with it, and I think that's the goal for everyone with a mental illness," she told the talk-show host.

In 2015, Lovato spoke with Women's Health about her diagnosis and her choice to talk publicly about her mental illness. She said that, in the end, she chose to use her own struggles as inspiration for others.

"I remember sitting with my manager and my family and talking to them about whether or not to speak out about the issues that I was dealing with," she said. "I knew that there were two options: I could either not talk about my stint in rehab and hope that it went away, or I could talk about it and inspire people to get help for their issues, as well, so that's exactly what I did."

Be Vocal provides tips and resources for those with mental illness or people in their lives who are looking for help. The website also links to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance's " wellness toolbox," which includes advice for connecting with healthcare professionals and tracking symptoms.

As Lovato told DeGeneres, her new documentary follows the lives of three individuals who are living with mental illness. The film is part of Be Vocal's initiative to encourage those living with mental-health conditions to speak up about their challenges and to realize that they are not alone in those struggles.

"The reality is, one in five Americans has a mental-health condition, so as long as they get the right treatment team in place and the right treatment plan, then they can live well with it," Lovato said.

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Demi Lovato Says She Is "Bipolar and Proud"

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The singer spoke to Ellen DeGeneres about her new mental health documentary.

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Lovato's breakdown correlates with Fairclough's 'Disney-star-turned-trainwreck' notion. The term "train wreck" has become a catch-all phrase to describe young female celebrities deemed to be "out of control" (2008, p. 13) as a result of scandal, sex, drug use etc. Once this label is applied, it has become considerably difficult for female celebrities to be taken seriously in both public and professional spheres. Following Lovato's public breakdown, it appears that she was delving down this destructive path, one that many of her co-starlets, such as Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus, have fallen down. While this image usually damages female celebrity's careers indefinitely, we shall see that Lovato presents a rare exception to this historical trend.

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(part of a series in Special Issue #48: GOING CHEAP? Female Celebrity in Reality, Tabloid and Scandal Genres - Edited by DIANE NEGRA and SU HOLMES)

Introduction

[1] From "outing" well known actors to breaking news of celebrity pregnancies or mental breakdowns, the gossip blog has become a key component of contemporary celebrity culture - one that is arguably usurping more traditional gossip forums such as the weekly magazine.Perez Hilton, one of the most popular gossip blogs, draws up to 7 million hits per day (LA Times) and in conjunction with other well known sites such asTMZ, Lainey Gossip, What Would Tyler Durden Do, DlistedandThe Superficial, it exerts a considerable influence on the way that celebrities are mediated in contemporary media culture. Such blogs report the scandalous, glamorous and everyday behaviors of celebrities at such a frenetic pace that traditional celebrity gossip delivery mechanisms are struggling to compete. Furthermore, gossip bloggers have the power to undermine the often carefully crafted image that the entertainment industry works tirelessly to cultivate and maintain. Sean Redmond asserts that "The everywhere of fame has the potential to offer new and liberating interactions and engagements for all those who are "made up" in fame, or for all those who regularly consume its stars, celebrities and personalities." (Redmond, 27) Gossip bloggers are helping to redefine this concept of the "everywhere of fame" whereby the intimate interactions between the blogger and audience can alter the public circulation of a celebrity.

[2] Blogs encourage a cynical awareness of the production of celebrity culture and encourage us to question the mechanisms through which we are positioned as consumers. Yet this questioning has its limits. In order to understand this more fully, it is necessary to examine the cultural function of the gossip blog and its use of the "Bitch" as narrator - especially as this relates to the mediation of performative markers of femininity within a post-feminist context. In particular, I want to ask how a recent shift to more malicious or "Bitchy" discussion of female celebrities, as well as the heightened profile of the female "train-wreck" celebrity, has been propelled by the rising popularity of gossip blogging. Indeed, what is particularly crucial here is how the female celebrity, which arguably represents versions of the "ideal" female body in the public sphere, can be understood within a Western neoliberal emphasis on individualism. Furthermore, although there has been a burgeoning collection of scholarship on both the tabloidization of news (Gamson, Biressi and Nunn), as well as the concept of contemporary celebrity culture (Cashmore, Rojek, Holmes, Turner), little attention has been paid to how gender is configured (and reconfigured) within this climate. It is also clear that gossip bloggers - Perez Hilton in particular - are pertinent examples of how celebrity culture is no longer considered as "cheap fodder" for the masses. As Jo Littler suggests;

Previously, for professional middle-class taste-makers, engaging with the gossip and tittle-tattle around celebrity culture was positioned as downmarket, flashy, sensationalist and trashy: as 'common'. Now, to know about it is important, even if this is accompanied by a vestigial sense of distance through irony(Littler, 8).

Gossip blogs plug this gap neatly, representing a seemingly "democratic culture" in which audiences interact with celebrity images in multiple and diverse ways.

The development of the gossip blog

[3] Blogging has been in existence since the mid 1990s when the concept of the blog evolved from more personal online diaries. Blogs gained widespread mainstream recognition when they became popular during the 2004 US Presidential campaign. Providing a journalistic mechanism to reach a twenty first century technology-dependent audience, blogging offers a means through which to stimulate and disseminate political debate on a global scale. Gossip blogging operates in much the same way: often using derisive and vicious discourse, it provides an opportunity to debate aspects of a celebrity's behavior, lifestyle and appearance, while complicating the cultural, spatial and temporal relationship between celebrity and audience. Celebrities are no longer perceived as primarily or necessarily figures of aspiration, but as characters to judge and deride. Almost all gossip blogs function in analogous ways: images are often posted with a caption or commentary and an invitation to post a response. Of course, stars and celebrities have always proffered images which can be decoded by audiences in both resistant and hegemonic ways (Dyer, 1986). However, today, the gossip blogger becomes both the producer and consumer of the celebrity - offering a route through which to deconstruct the celebrity image, while also contributing to, and even re-shaping, its semiotic and cultural connotations. As Tenenbaum suggests:

Blogs have become the online expression of American egalitarianism in relation to those placed on a pedestal by way of their participation in public entertainment. And just as Oscar Wilde and Voltaire lampooned the aristocracy in 19th and 17th century Europe, so too do Michael K, Trent Vanegas, and Perez Hilton sit down each day at their computers and turn their keen eyes to the celebrity aristocracy among us (Tenenbaum).

[4] Celebrity gossip is of course nothing new. Perez Hilton and his contemporaries represent the most recent figures in a long line of celebrity gossips that began functioning during the early days of the Studio System. Louella Parsons is generally regarded as the first gossip columnist, and Parsons began reporting from Hollywood for William Randolph Hearst in 1925. By the 1950s, her work appeared in numerous Hearst papers and was syndicated in many others across the world. Parsons remained the most powerful columnist until former actress Hedda Hopper entered the industry in the late 1930s. The two women reportedly became fierce rivals, and although many of their stories were actually planted by the Hollywood studios, they created anxiety among many popular stars of the day when it came to the protection of their image. Later developments included Confidential in the 1950s, the first publication dedicated to reporting star scandal and gossip. Unlike Parsons and Hopper, Confidentialhad a much more removed and antagonistic relationship with the studios - one fostered by the decline of the studio system and the extent to which stars lost the measure of industrial and cultural protection which had previously shielded them from the most ruthless press scrutiny.

[5] Whereas in previous eras, figures such as Hopper and Parsons may have adopted a level of derogatory discussion regarding particular stars, they operated from inside and alongside the Hollywood studio system and generated interest in actors to promote their latest films. Indeed, the gossip mavens of the studio system functioned as distant but caustic commentators on the stars of the day, whereas contemporary bloggers are engaged in a much more intimate relationship with their readers, often gaining information from them and directly participating in online discussion. The speed at which these sites areable to post their content permit minute observations of celebrity behavior. Many sites, includingTMZ.com, post video content from the paparazzi, and the immediacy of seeing and hearing a celebrity caught "off guard" offers an arguably more visceral experience than any print material could possibly offer. At the height of Britney Spears' well-publicized breakdown in January 2008,TMZ.com placed videographers with a live feed outside the star's house and at the courtroom, so that the public could literally follow her journey in virtual real time. The New York based Gawkergossip site also exemplifies this cultural and temporal shift in a feature entitled "Celebrity Stalker." Members of the public who spot a celebrity in Manhattan can email the sighting to the editors. The editors then publish the information alongside a map and directions so that a reader can literally follow the movements of a celebrity across the city. Of course, the celebrity gossip market remains dominated by paparazzi images, but gossip blogs increasingly publish "candid" photographs taken by the public. This to some degree circumvents the conventional channels through which celebrity gossip is disseminated, encouraging the audience to become a more intrinsic part of the machinery which produces celebrity culture.

[6]Weekly gossip magazines remain popular in both the UK and the US, and publications such as heatandNow regularly garner large weekly sales figures of around 500,000 ( baueradvertising). However, unlike gossip magazines, blogs are beholden to no journalistic standards and rely on unsubstantiated rumors, unsourced stories, unflattering candid photography and acerbic commentary. Gossip bloggers often prefer to remain anonymous and many sites rely on members of the public providing content, which is posted without attribution. Indeed, the outing of bloggers has now become a pastime of the mainstream media. For example, the press relentlessly pursued information about the origins of the blog Girl with a One Track Mind , and eventually succeeded in revealing the identity of its author, Abby Lee. However, there are some who are keen to overtly display their identity and Hiltonis the self-proclaimed "Queen of all Media"(Perezhilton.com). Both Hilton and LaineyLiu of Lainey Gossip occupy an interesting space between the invisible commentator and visible celebrity, while both provide significant examples of the mordacious dissection of female celebrities' looks and style.

Gossip blogging and postfeminism

[7] I situate the celebrity gossip blog phenomenon as an important, but largely unexamined, register for the transmission and reiteration of discourses of contemporary postfeminist media culture - a culture which, as Tasker and Negra assert:

is inherently contradictory, characterized by a double discourse that works to construct feminism as a phenomenon of the past, traces of which can be found (and sometimes even valued) in the present; postfeminism suggests that it is the very success of feminism that produces its irrelevance for contemporary culture (Tasker and Negra, 8).

I position gossip bloggers within this context, one which regularly suggests that feminism in its traditional sense is no longer necessary. Although postfeminism does at times complicate this assertion, as it can celebrate feminist gains in a limited and frequently reductive fashion, it almost always evokes - as Tasker and Negra assert - "the pastness" of feminism, implying that we can only look back at a feminist movement that no longer holds much relevance to a twenty-first century media culture.It appears that this "pastness" has been willfully embraced in popular culture, evidenced in the hyper-sexualization of popular culture from the Girls Gone Wild phenomenon to the E! reality show Girls of The Playboy Mansion(2005-present). Post- feminism is both a complex and loaded term and one that, in a neo-liberal society, has been packaged successfully, suggesting that women must buy into the products of makeover and celebrity culture in order to demonstrate their "empowerment". This reinforces the notion that the principles of second wave feminism are archaic, and it operates to further fuel cultural anxieties surrounding body image, relationships, careers and motherhood. As Paula Black suggests:

The gains made by feminism, such as access to free and safe contraception and a commitment to equality in the workplace, at least in the affluent industrial world, mean that young women have been freed to make choices regarding occupation and sexuality within less rigid restrictions than their mothers. However, this freedom has also been experienced as responsibility and fear of failure. (Black, 153)

[8]That these anxieties may have arisen as a consequence of possessing such freedoms, suggests women must be seen as successful in all areas of life, andparticularly in terms of physical appearance. The discourses of postfeminism actively reinforce these concerns by suggesting that women may be able to have it all, but must also engage in the constant maintenance of the self in order to remain beautiful, employable, marriageable and ultimately happy. In both makeover and celebrity culture any sense of identity stasis is condemned; women are encouraged to look to the body to locate their sense of self and in order to be perceived as a good citizen, they must be involved in a process of what Meredith Jones terms "becoming" (2008). This is a state in which one must continually engage in practices that are seen to improve both the inner and outer self and as Jones argues, this culture suggests that "becoming is more desirable than being" (Jones, 12). A continuous beauty regime and an investment in costly surgical procedures are fervently advocated with no discussion of financial implications. The voracity of the empowerment or "you're worth it" rhetoric has propelled this to the point where women are often considered as "letting themselves go" if they have not continuously participated in rigorous beauty regimes.

[9] Engagement with this prescriptive regime of self-maintenance is mandatory in a postfeminist culture, while the boundaries of this ideal self are positioned as precarious and fluid. Celebrities are also regularly deemed as having "gone too far" in their quest for youth and beauty and as such, are publicly condemned in the gossip blog. Older female celebrities such as Cher, Farah Fawcett and Melanie Griffith are regularly vilified for not "growing old gracefully" and for having too much surgery so that the extensive labor involved in maintaining this "ideal self" is revealed. Conversely, within this context, celebrities are also routinely maligned for not fully participating in this process as their success is seen as reliant on a youthful physical appearance. Being correctly "feminine" is a concept that pervades both makeover and celebrity culture. One of the functions of the gossip blog within this landscape is to reinforce and police such conservative conceptions, while wrapping a deeply derogatory discourse in a cloak of reflexivity and irony which allows the blog to become an "acceptable" and normalized part of celebrity representation. A key feature of this discursive context is that female celebrities are unsurprisingly held to different and more exacting standards than their male counterparts. It seems that the female celebrity must be acquiescent to a culture that is more concerned with her physical representation than her professional accomplishments.

Bitch Culture

[10]The seeming pleasure with which vicious celebrity gossip bloggers have been embraced may well suggest that a "Bitch culture" is a key part of the landscape of postfeminism. The term "Bitch" is recurrently used in a variety of contexts within popular culture. It has undergone something of a reclamation in some areas, as demonstrated by its use in relation to best selling books such as "The Bitch in the House" and the diet bible "Skinny Bitch". Here, the term is used in a celebratory way to describe women who are confident, self-assured and focussed. The "Bitch culture" that exists within the gossip blog does not operate to celebrate women who exude such traits, but to continually denigrate them. Bloggers often adopt the traits traditionally associated with the term; they are outspoken, flout codes of courtesy and are fiercely opinionated. As well as reconfiguring the celebrity image in terms of detailed discussion of how female celebrities rigidly conform to, or deviate from, the prescribed boundaries of femininity,Perez Hilton also attempts to "out" celebrities (and has done so with N-Sync singer Lance Bass and actor Neil Patrick Harris, while regularly hinting at the possible homosexuality of stars such as Will Smith, John Travolta and Tom Cruise). Identifying as a homosexual and founding a media personality on his "queen persona," Hilton clearly embraces a camp sensibility and insists that no celebrity should claim the right to remain "in the closet" when in the public sphere. Perez Hilton's persona as a gay male diva embraces this bitch identity, while endorsing a peculiarly essentialist configuration of gender categorization. In Hilton's cultural space as a gay diva, women must be essentially "female" and those that he perceives as not conforming to these strictures, such as actress Lindsay Lohan's girlfriend Samantha Ronson and wrestler Hulk Hogan's daughter Brooke, are routinely positioned as "other", and labeled with terms such as "manly" or "trannies". (Perezhilton) Here, Perez Hilton couches his condemnation in an ironic and playful context by using humorous discourse in an attempt to mitigate the ferocity of his condemnation.

[11] In comparison, Perez Hilton promotes burlesque star Dita Von Teese and Hollywood actresses Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, as examples of celebrities who achieve his required state of being "ideally female". Yet Von Teese's image is complicated by her identification with burlesque which parodies feminine identity. In making visible - to some degree - the labor of femininity, Von Teese's image in part resists mainstream notions of feminine beauty. Yet such complicating factors are not acknowledged. Evidently, the key practice of gossip blogging is to police the physiological status, style and appearances of female celebrities - regardless of their association (or otherwise) with more "meritocractic" notions of talent and fame. Perez Hilton has frequently attacked actress Mischa Barton for her seeming lack of style and for her body, which has been photographed displaying evidence of cellulite. Gossip blogger Lainey Liu ofLaineygossip also adopts a "Bitch" persona and regularly engages in these discourses to call attention to celebrities' beauty regimes and engagement with consumption practices. An image dissection of US singer and actress Jessica Simpson is presented in malicious detail.

All the signs are there...Just before John Mayer broke up with Jessica Simpson, she was photographed wearing those infamous high waisted pants, a little bloated from drowning her pre-breakup heartache into much food and booze, incapable of thinking straight, let alone being able to dress herself properly. I feel another episode coming. Maybe not the exact same trousers, but something equally as memorable, equally as atrocious, and hopefully equally as hilarious. Check out Jess in Vegas at the grand opening of the Palms the other night. She looks awful. She looks old. And she knows it too. Because the Jessica Simpson we've seen the last few months has been totally the opposite. When things were right in her relationship, Jess was no tranny. She was light and beautiful with really great hair and so much confidence and now just a shadow of that remains. Note her body language in this black dress. Not flattering and she can feel it. Even worse, she can't figure out to how it make it work anyway despite the poor fit. Jess has lost her mojo and she will also lose her Romo...which can only mean one thing:Another epic fashion disaster is just around the corner. You can't wait. Don't lie. (Laineygossip.com)

[12]This kind of detailed dissection of a celebrity image is typical of the Bitch narratives at work within gossip blog culture. This discourse also exists as a reminder to all women that, while we may look up to celebrities, we must consume correctly and become obsessive about our own bodies. A pertinent example of such surveillance is the celebrity "baby bump watch" phenomenon, where the slightest evidence of a bloated stomach automatically raises questions about pregnancy (see Negra on the fetishization of celebrity pregnancy). If the celebrity is not pregnant, they are warned that they must re-shape their bodies, and like their celebrity counterparts, "ordinary" women are encouraged to be obsessed with their bodies in terms of pregnancy, and post-pregnancy weight. The contradictions here are obvious: female celebrities are considered strong and independent women and yet they also regularly inscribed as infinitely inadequate. This is arguably a far cry from the pedestal that the famous were afforded only a few decades earlier in the Hollywood studio system. Although the gossip columnist in this era may well have offered negative comment, there remained a sense that stars were valued by audiences both for their looks and their style as much as for the "talent" which made them famous. The qualities of transcendence and ineffability that attached to so many Studio era stars are largely anathema to the contemporary celebrity gossip blog.

Gossip blogging and "train wreck" celebrity

[13] In recent years, there have been a number of well-documented cases of the "downfall" of young female celebrities including; Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, Mischa Barton, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Allen, and Amy Winehouse. These women are linked by their highly publicized drug or alcohol addictions or arrests for driving offences, while they are also seen as being connected by their putative narcissism, conspicuous consumption, and bids for sexual affirmation. Deemed innately fascinating, they have become everyday fodder for the majority of gossip blogs, magazines and tabloids in both the US and UK. Perez Hilton's namesake, Paris, is an example of a celebrity whose private self has happily disappeared into its own image, becoming the ultimate example of post-modern identity. Hilton encapsulates the sexist imagery that postfeminism utilizes with its trademark ironic twist, exploiting her sexuality for commercial gain. While the concept of the "bad girl" - particularly in Hollywood - is nothing new, assiduous attention has been paid to this small group of female celebrities whose behavior has been treated with widespread condemnation. The term "train wreck", an American expression adopted by most gossip bloggers, has become a catch-all term for young female celebrities deemed to be "out of control." During 2006 and 2007, a number of these celebrities were photographed seemingly encouraging paparazzi to take pictures of their intimate body parts while exiting limousines. Perez Hilton and others have regularly posted these images of female celebrities ostensibly exposing themselves (see also Schwartz in this issue). To some degree, this exposure could be read as an espousal of a feminist ideal of freedom of choice: these women opt to be in the public eye and choose to display their bodies in particular ways to the waiting paparazzi, fully aware that these images will appear on such sites, commodified for our consumption. Yet these episodes and images do not suggest freedom. Rather, they evoke a postfeminist trickery that encourages hypersexualization and exploitation in the name of empowerment. As Ariel Levy suggested in her conceptualization of postfeminist hypersexualization:

Because we have determined that all empowered women must be overtly and publicly sexual, and because the only sign of sexuality we seem to be able to recognize is a direct allusion to red-light entertainment, we have laced the sleazy energy and aesthetic of a topless club or a Penthouse shoot throughout our entire culture. (Levy, 26).

Predictably, the incidents of celebrity flashing created furious debate and discussion in the popular media. Camille Paglia commented angrily on the phenomenon suggesting, "I am completely appalled by what these young women are doing because I think that they are cheapening their own image and obliterating all sexual mystery and glamour, which are at the heart of the star system" (Paglia, cited in 'Us Magazine'). Yet these women have grown up in a culture where second wave feminism is seemingly of little relevance to their lives: they exist within a postfeminist culture in which the relentless focus on individual choice and pleasure has been the pervading societal mood.

[14]A mainstreaming of celebrity hatred has also taken place, and the evolution of the gossip blog - with its use of the Bitch narrator - has certainly propelled this development. Turner suggested in 2004 that invasive, exploitative and vengeful celebrity coverage is niche and targeted at a "minority for whom such coverage may well operate in ways that are difficult to interpret from the outside" (Turner, 122) Yet today, this discourse is far from niche, not least of all because Bitch culture has become firmly embedded within the mainstream paradigms of celebrity mediation. Within this context, few celebrities have received more negative attention than Britney Spears. Her fall from pop stardom and descent into mental health problems and drug addiction has been well documented, not least due to her supposed status as an "unfit mother". Lisa Appignanesi suggests that:

Then as now, it seems, men can be wild and bad, transgress bounds, enter the revolving doors of what we casually call "rehab", without incurring the stigma and constraints of madness, whereas women, certainly once they have reached the maturity of motherhood, cannot. Being a bad, rebellious girl, in the style of Amy Winehouse or Lily Allen, may just about be permissible, but the socially defined limits of what is considered "sane" quickly narrow with the arrival of babies. (Appignanesi)

Spears's public downfall and perceived failure at motherhood attests to the fact that famous mothers - particularly when they are young - are under unprecedented surveillance by the media. Gossip bloggers promulgate this process by scrutinizing, instructing and passing judgment on celebrity mothers. In particular, the media is seemingly unable to tolerate images of sexualized, and thus "transgressive" mothers. This can also function in reverse: celebrities such as Nicole Richie and Angelina Jolie both of whom possess something of a "wild child" past, are represented as being "redeemed" through motherhood.

[15]The fall of Spears was religiously documented and followed by bloggers, and this narrative may have been the making of many gossip sites. The speed with which Spears provided content through her erratic behavior meant that traditional newspapers and magazines could not keep apace with the raft of stories available and gossip bloggers function to plug this gap. This wrought a pertinent convergence of paparazzi video footage and gossip blogging. This video footage, which is now an intrinsic part of such sites, brings the audience in closer contact with the spectacle of the female body while encouraging a curious mixture of desire and repugnance. TMZ.com regularly uses such footage and has its own crew placed outside key locations such as Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles, a popular haunt for the famous. In Spears' case, the public were able to witness the downfall of a celebrity in such fast and cerebral terms that it became acceptable to witness hordes of paparazzi following her and for gossip bloggers to post content almost continually. Such is the frenetic nature and voracious appetite for images of young women "out of control". Furthermore, the paparazzi have generated new templates of car-based celebrity scandal in which they use baiting techniques in a desperate attempt to taunt celebrity subjects into a "train-wreck" response, whether in terms of road rage or displays of reckless driving. Most of these encounters were captured on video, are well documented on Hollywood.tv or YouTube and were obviously lucrative for the photographers and agencies involved. Clearly, once a celebrity is considered "out of control", the media lament their slide into the darker side of fame, while capitalizing on the material it offers.

[16] Celebrities featured in the machinery of their profession, at premieres, awards ceremonies, on-set or even in their "ordinary lives," are now considered staid and do not feed the voracious media and public appetite for scandal. The scaling down (in some quarters) of coverage of what we might call "practiced celebrity" has dovetailed with the apparent decline of more meritocratic explanations of fame. Those who are famous for their "well knownness" (Boorstin) have often become a key focus for gossip bloggers given the expectation that they are more likely to make "desperate" (and thus scandalized) bids for fame. However, it is always a more significant event when a celebrity with a more apparently meritocratic persona breaks down in the manner of Spears (Spears, once an unusual example of a smooth transition from child to adult star, was at least seen as a successful singer and dancer, even if the cultural value of pop celebrity remains contested). The coverage of celebrity mental illness, as Harper (Harper) documents, is increasingly gendered. The long-held assumptive link between genius and mental illness is most often associated with men, while famous women with a mental illness are often placed into the category of the melodramatic woman who cannot be controlled (see also Bell in this issue). The zealousness with which intense negative coverage of Spears' mental illness was relayed via gossip blogging suggests that the archaic representational template of the hysterical woman continues to be keenly perpetuated. Gossip bloggers regularly describe female celebrities in derogatory terms if they are represented as behaving in perceived "inappropriate ways", but these women are caught in a paradox. On the one hand, they are encouraged to imitate plastic female stereotypes of postfeminist sexuality, while on the other, they are condemned as behaving in morally reprehensible ways. Terms such as "famewhore", "slut" and 'hasbeen' are used regularly by Hilton to designate perceived transgressions of behavioral norms and celebrities are essentially dragged back through the mechanisms that made them. As Salon.com suggests of Spears: "She (Spears) embodies the disdain in which this culture holds its young women: the desire to sexualize and spoil them while young, and to degrade and punish them as they get older. Of course, she also represents a youthful feminine willingness - stupid or manipulated as it may be - to conform to the culture's every humiliating expectation of her" (Traister).As Rebecca Traister suggests, celebrities are caught between this double helix of meaning which is symptomatic of a contemporary postfeminist popular culture: female celebrities are encouraged to hyper-sexualize themselves in order to generate revenue for the organizations surrounding them, yet they are routinely condemned for growing older (and by implication losing their sexual value). McRobbie also suggests that a key factor in the dismantling of feminism is the "normalization of pornography" in which:

There is quietude and complicity in the manners of generationally specific notions of cool, and more precisely, an uncritical relation to dominant, commercially produced, sexual representations that actively invoke hostility to assumed feminist positions from the past in order to endorse a new regime of sexual meanings based on female consent, equality, participation and pleasure, free of politics.(McRobbie, 34)

This new regime of sexual meaning which McRobbie describes here is also at work within the gossip blog. Bloggers are keen to exploit celebrity images in the name of commercial gain, yet they vilify those who appear to "transgress" sexual boundaries. This expropriation of meaning thus suggests a much more complex relationship between popular culture and feminist frameworks. Celebrity culture encourages audiences to criticize celebrity bodies through the discourse of the gossip blogger, yet this also perpetuates the consensus that we cannot escape the judgment of our own bodies against the famous. As Blum suggests "In identifying with the two-dimensional bodies (which is the invitation) implicit in celebrity culture, we simultaneously experience seeing and being seen. We are subject and object of the gaze, which is the ultimate achievement of the narcissistic subject" (Blum, 187).

Conclusion

[17]The Bitch persona that many bloggers have adopted is inextricably enmeshed within a postfeminst cultural landscape. It functions as a figure of pseudo-empowerment by seemingly promoting a "shared" attitude toward the celebrity that is couched in a tone of humorous, ironic discourse. Yet it clearly vilifies female celebrities who have been afforded all of the freedom that second wave feminism offered, while labeling them "sluts", "has-beens", "fame-whores" and "trainwrecks". Many of the so called "train wreck" celebrities are caught in the constricting hold of celebrity culture, aware that they must remain young, beautiful and sexualized in order to retain visibility. The highly public negotiation of new female freedoms raises complex questions requiring the responsibilities that the gains of second wave feminism have created. The representations of "train wreck" celebrities discussed here are set alongside the more widespread sexualization of culture, or as Ariel Levy has famously termed "raunch culture". Levy suggests that "The proposition that having the most simplistic, plastic stereotypes of female sexuality constantly reiterated throughout our culture somehow proves that we are sexually liberated and personally empowered has been offered it us, and we have accepted it." (Levy, 197) As Levy proposes, the convergence of raunch culture dynamics and the allure of celebrity have particularly worrying consequences for feminism.

[18]Gossip blogging is a mechanism symptomatic of a culture that has no "colossal" stars anymore; all celebrities (especially if female) are there to be deconstructed, their images taken apart piece by piece via the hypercritical Bitch persona which pervades many sites hosted by both male and female bloggers. Indeed, Perez Hilton'schildlike use of Photoshop - in which he scrawls snarky comments over the image of the celebrity - seems designed to mitigate against criticism by suggesting a certain innocence - a use of "home-made" technology which usefully undermines the practices of the more carefully constructed (professional) image. The apparent instantaneous nature of the blog clearly elicits a sense of interactivity with the processes of manipulation, and Hilton's use of Photoshop serves to further stress that women are still judged by narrow standards of beauty. Through these mechanisms, audiences become complicit in a postfeminist policing of the boundaries of the celebrity body through identification with the Bitch persona of the blogger. WhileRebecca Feasey (Feasey) suggests that the coverage of celebrity style in heatmagazine can be a potentially empowering discourse for the female reader, here the ridiculing of female celebrities in gossip blogs arguably creates even more rigid boundaries of prescribed femininity.

[19] Female celebrities have become accustomed to such policing of their bodies via the Bitch character in blogs and magazines. The audience consumes this policing as part of the apparatus of contemporary celebrity culture, while being subject to interpellation as a consumer themselves.Lainey Gossip's description of Paris Hilton as; "Hollywood Ebola - Deadly Ebola Virus devastates those in its path - leaving victims bleeding out from all orifices. Such is the effect of Paris Hilton on Hollywood. Like Ebola, Hollywood Ebola cannot be killed. She lurks in cracks and corners, unleashing her destruction on anyone who gets too close, retreating into the rain forest to regenerate only to come back even uglier, more potent, more vile" (Laineygossip.com) is not atypical, and these discourses are now commonplace within gossip blogging. Female stars and celebrities, whether perceived as traditionally "talented" or not, are no longer held up as models to aspire to unless they rigidly conform to this limited range of representational tropes. With Bitch rhetoric increasingly dominating everyday commentary regarding female celebrities, the rhetoric of postfeminist hostility and judgment is truly in action. Perhaps the postfeminist Bitch culture that pervades the celebrity landscape allows a validation of competitiveness as audiences revel in the downfall of those who seemingly have it all. In order to fully examine these cultural shifts, more complex conceptions of the gendered hierarchies of fame which structure celebrity gossip are needed. But for now, female celebrities will continue to be dissected for public consumption and audiences will continue to revel in it.

My thanks to Su Holmes and Diane Negra for their helpful comments, suggestions and patience in the development and reformatting of this article.

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Websites

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Fame is a Losing Game: Celebrity Gossip Blogging, Bitch Culture and Postfeminism

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(part of a series in Special Issue #48: GOING CHEA

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Demi released the single 'Sober' in June 2018. The lyrics referred to her relapse with alcohol and substance abuse. However, unlike in 2010, Demi admitted that she was having a hard time remaining sober. Demi's ability to remain open and authentic about her struggles is what makes her so relatable as she highlights the realities of battling addiction and normalises the fact that the journey is not smooth-sailing. This serves to convey the conventionality and normalcy of her star image, a side which audiences can relate to.

Sober lyrics:

"To the ones who have never left me, we've been down this road before, I'm so sorry, I'm not sober anymore"
"I wanna be a role model, but I'm only human"

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Demi Lovato - Sober (Official Lyric Video)

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In spite of her overdose, Demi's star status did not waver. She made her incredible comeback performing at the GRAMMYs in 2020. If you compare Demi's breakdown to other female celebrities, such as Lindsay Lohan, it is easy to see that Demi is an exception as she has always managed to 'bounce back', with her career and image intact. This is because Demi's image is built upon constant self-improvement and recovery therefore, the risk of a relapse no longer poses a threat to her success. In fact, showing the ups-and-downs of her journey is what has increased her fame and likability amongst her fans.

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Demi Lovato Anyone   Grammy Awards 2020 live performance HD

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Dancing with the Devil Documentary (2021)

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Dancing with the Devil Documentary (2021)

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Demi reclaimed control over her image by releasing a series of confessional YouTube documentaries including 'Stay Strong' (2012), 'Simply Complicated' (2017) and 'Dancing with the Devil' (2021). These documentaries took viewers behind-the-scenes, unveiling Lovato's private image amidst the glamour of stardom. She detailed her struggles with eating disorders, mental health issues and addiction. They all follow a similar narrative structure which involves firstly, a private struggle; secondly, a narrative of diagnosis and thirdly, a narrative of self-transformation and self-improvement. As a result, Demi shifted her image from an 'all-American good girl' to a relatable and authentic star image.

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In 'Stay Strong', Demi also spoke very vulnerably about her eating disorder that developed at a very young age. She recalls having body-image issues from the age of 5 when she would compete in beauty pageants. She has since described these contests as toxic and something that completely damaged her self-esteem. In this documentary, she confessed that she has purged since leaving treatment in 2011 and described it as a "daily-battle" to remain happy and healthy. This reminds us that stars, like us, are imperfect. By taking us 'behind-the-image' Demi becomes a 'real' and relatable 20-year old girl (at the time of the documentary) who is facing issues that many of us 'ordinary' people face.

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The singer, whose transparency and openness during the entire 60-minute documentary was admirable, took the brave step of revealing that she has cut herself and thrown up since seeking treatment.

"I cannot tell you that I have not thrown up since treatment," Lovato told MTV. "I cannot tell you that I have not cut myself since treatment. I'm not perfect. It's a daily battle."

The 19-year-old singer entered rehab for "emotional and physical issues," including an eating disorder, in November 2010 and left in January 2011. Last year, Lovato revealed that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder before entering treatment.

Lovato's ongoing battle with food came into focus when the teen sat down for Thanksgiving dinner with her family for the first time since leaving treatment. But, with the help of her sponsor, Lovato said she was able to make it through the dinner without throwing up: "And that's something that I'm really proud of."

During an after-special with MTV's Su-chin Pak, Lovato said "it was kind of a challenge to open up to cameras [about her issues] knowing it would be in front of the world."

"I felt really vulnerable, and I still kind of do tonight," she said, adding. "I wouldn't change it. I know that some girl probably needed to hear this story tonight."

After the special aired Tuesday, Lovato tweeted her gratitude for the positive fan response on Twitter to the special.

Wow... I'm reading all of your tweets and I'm beyond speechless at all the amazing and positive feedback... Wow. So grateful!!!! THANK YOU!!
- demetria lovato (@ddlovato) March 7, 2012

Watch two clips from "Stay Strong" below and the full episode here.

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Demi Lovato talks about ongoing battle with eating disorder, self-harm on special 'Stay Strong' (video)

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"I cannot tell you that I have not thrown up since treatment," Lovato said on her MTV special. "I cannot tell you that I have not cut myself since treatment. I'm not perfect. It's a daily battle."

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The three documentaries all received very positive responses from Lovato's fans, and even non-fans, who resonated with her struggles. She was praised for her authenticity and vulnerability as she revealed the reality of living with addiction and various mental health disorders. The positive responses from fans signifies how a star's authenticity can translate into likability.

(Fan comments from each documentary on YouTube):

"As a recovering addict, I love love love that you showed the ugly side of it all."

"I hope Demi knows how much of an impact she has sharing her story with the world. A world filled with millions who are or have struggled with the same addictions and demons. For us, to hear someone of such fame who has access to almost whatever in life imaginable... it makes us feel less alone, less of a minace to society, and understood more with such a big voice speaking out to the world."

"She has bipolar disorder, eating disorder, drug addiction and after all this she has a very unique voice, she write songs and she has a very interesting sense of humor. She is the kind of person who I wanna meet and just talk about everything :)"

"I love the way this documentary has portrayed addiction. In its true light and seriousness."