Over the years, she's opened up about her eating disorders, self-harm, mental illness
and substance abuse.
And yet, according to her freshly released documentary, Simply Complicated, there's still
a lot we don't know about Demi Lovato.
Here are some of the most shocking revelations.
Daddy issues
Lovato's birth father, Patrick, struggled with addictions to drugs and alcohol.
Lovato's sister Dallas said of their dad:
"He would rage and yell and throw things, and Demi saw that."
Lovato's childhood friend, Marissa Callahan, revealed:
"He would tell them he had cancer when he didn't.
Or he would tell them he's dying tomorrow, when he wasn't."
Patrick's addictions foreshadowed Lovato's own future struggles, and she believes that's
what led her to substance abuse at a young age.
"My dad was an addict and an alcoholic...and I guess I always searched for what he found
in drugs and alcohol."
The New York Daily News reported that Patrick passed away from cancer in 2013.
Lovato paid tribute to him with her song "Father" on her album Confident.
Depression and bullying
When Lovato was young, she was obsessed with death and dying, and it wasn't until later
that she connected that fixation to her mental illness.
She said:
"I was depressed at a very, very young age, fascinated with death."
Lovato's issues were likely exacerbated by the severe bullying she experienced when she
was just 12 years old.
"One day, this girl who was popular started saying, 'Demi should off herself.
She should s--- her wrists.'"
The result was a petition, passed around the school.
Demi took a cue from the letter.
"So I went off of what they were calling me, which was a whore, and being fat."
Food as medicine
Lovato is still attempting to recover from her very first demon: an eating disorder.
She said:
"Food is still the biggest challenge in my life…
Body image, what I'm gonna eat next, what I wish I could be eating, what I wish I didn't
eat — you know, it's just constant."
Mom Dianna De La Garza, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, admitted she had her own issues
with food, saying:
"I may have passed that along to my kids — that wanting everything to be perfect and the need
to be thin and beautiful to be successful."
Showstopper
By now you've likely heard the story of how Lovato punched a backup dancer while on tour
with the Jonas Brothers in 2010.
But no one really knew the details until now.
Lovato revealed that she had bought everyone in her band and all of her dancers dinner
— and booze — that night.
And that's how everything began.
"Somebody ended up getting w---…
I was on Adderall, and we had trashed the hotel."
Someone told Kevin Jonas Sr, that Lovato was using Adderall.
Lovato managed to coerce the Jonas patriarch into revealing that backup dancer Alex "Shorty"
Welch had snitched on her.
After that, Lovato punched Welch square in the face, then went to sleep.
Her team promptly checked her into rehab for the first time in November 2010, where she
would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Attempts
Lovato's personal development and sobriety coach Mike Bayer revealed that, at her lowest,
Lovato attempted.
He said:
"She'd have like, bags of pills and an eight-ball of coke.
We were in Palm Springs and she locked her bedroom door.
She had just taken a bunch of pills."
Once they kicked down the door and Demi was rushed to the hospital, Bayer said:
"The nurse is checking her in, the bottle of pills is there.
She grabs the pills, she then downs all the other pills and says, 'You f---ing b----,
if I just tried to off myself, why would you give me access to pills?'"
Lovato was then temporarily sent to a psychiatric ward, before being released.
Preaching and abusing
While promoting her 2012 documentary Stay Strong, in which Lovato praised the values
of a sober lifestyle, she was still using drugs — and nearly overdosed.
"There was one night when I used a bunch of coke and I popped a few Xanax bars, and I
started to choke a little bit."
Lovato feared the worst.
"'Oh my God, I might be overdosing right now.'"
Lovato's manager, Phil McIntyre, was disgusted — but also not surprised.
He recalled:
"And she was on air promoting this new way of life, and I was like, 'You're so full of
it.'"
Nearly losing it all
Lovato officially hit rock bottom in 2012.
She said of the last night that she drank:
"I got really, really drunk…
And I was so drunk that I threw up in the back of the car service on the way to the
airport to perform on American Idol."
After she performed hungover, her professional team was so fed up that they almost quit at
the behest of Bayer and McIntyre.
Bayer then told Lovato they'd stay only if she destroyed her cellphone, which was filled
with drug dealer contacts and triggers.
Bayer forced her to drop the phone into a vase full of water in front of her team.
She explained:
"But it was the beginning of the process of surrendering."
She's come a long way
Lovato revealed that she was under a tremendous amount of pressure as her family breadwinner
during her Disney days.
But she's come a long way in 10 years.
She admitted:
"I've learned that love is necessary, heartbreak is unavoidable and loneliness is brutal."
And maybe most importantly, she says:
"I've learned that the key to being happy is to tell your truth and be OK without all
the answers."
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