Demi Lovato has been very vocal about a troubling period in their career, which she admits was filled with substance addiction and struggles with her mental health.
Recently, the Former Disney star opened up that her former managers controlled her every move when she was 18 till she turned 25 to an extent that it worsened her eating disorder.
The singer of the hit song “Sorry Not Sorry” made the comments while appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast. She claimed that the management of her career reached a breaking point, which resulted in her overdosing in 2018.
She claimed that the strict supervision from her handlers negatively contributed to her mental health. “There was someone that came into the picture, and when they came into the picture, everything in my life was controlled,” the singer said.
“I started having a sober companion, which was helpful for me, but it should not have lasted three years,” the singer, 30, shared while adding that this “person” started monitoring her eating habits.
Lovato, who struggled with an eating disorder went on to claim, “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,” Lovato, who recently resumed using she/her pronouns, added.
Lovato then recounted a past attempt to escape the confines of her hotel, in order to prevent her from phoning room service, her team allegedly confiscated her phone, “They 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,” she recalled.
Lovato added that the team had turned her down for medical attention in 2017 while she was vomiting blood. She said to Alex Cooper, “This person looked at me and said, “You’re not sick enough. And I think that was his way of saying like, ‘No, you’re not going back to treatment because if you do, this will look bad on me,” the Disney alum said, “And so I didn’t. I didn’t go back into treatment and you know, less than a year later, I ended up overdosing.”
The “I Love Me” singer then speculated that their treatment may have included “a brainwashing element.” And while Lovato seems to be doing well these days, they recently finished a second stay in treatment after overdosing nearly three years ago.
“And so you put all of your trust and your faith into one person and then from that, everyone around me listens to that one person and they go with it,” she said.
She added that she is no longer under anyone’s control and that the terrible experience has taught her “a lot,” adding that “no one can control me anymore.”
“I was under the control from 18 to 25 and those are years when you’re trying to figure out your adulthood. You’re no longer a teenager, but for some reason, I have people controlling everything I ate,” Lovato said. “My business decisions were always being made for me and now I’ve found my voice. No one can ever do that to me again and I feel empowered by what I went through because I had to grow and I had to learn to accept that I’m my own boss.”
Demi Lovato opens up to Alex Cooper from ‘Call Her Daddy’ about the abuse they endured from their old manager that led to their relapse in 2018. pic.twitter.com/Dc3kAs969i
— Buzzing Pop (@BuzzingPop) August 24, 2022
Sources: Dailywire, Thecut, Outfable