Demi Lovato is getting very candid about her relapse in her first television interview since nearly dying from an overdose in 2018. Demi appears on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on March 5, and in preview clips for the episode, she opens up about her path to a nearly fatal relapse. Demi has been open about the fact that her eating disorder was part of what triggered her to throw away her six years of sobriety, but now, she’s telling more about how the people who were part of her team at the time played a part in causing her to spiral.
“People were checking what my orders were at Starbucks on my bank statement,” Demi explained, in regards to how involved her team was in her body image issues. “It led to me being really unhappy. My bulimia got really bad, and I asked for help, and I didn’t receive the help that I needed. I was stuck in this unhappy position — hrere I am, sober, and I’m thinking to myself…I’m six years sober, but I’m miserable. I’m even more miserable than when I was drinking. Why am I sober? I reached out to the people on my team and they responded with, ‘You’re being very selfish. This would ruin things for you, and for us, as well.”
Demi said that this response led to her feeling “totally abandoned,” which is something she struggled with as a child, when her father left her family. To combat the feeling, she started to drink, which led her to partaking in other substances at a party. “It was only three months before I was in the hospital with an OD,” Demi admitted. In a separate part of the interview, she detailed just how bad her former team made her feel when it came to her eating habits. “If I was in my hotel room, they would take the phone out so I couldn’t call room service,” she revealed. “If there was fruit in my room, they’d take that out because there was extra sugar. For many years, I didn’t even have a birthday cake. I had a watermelon cake.”
Now, Demi is sober again, and she has a new team and support system behind her as she navigates the next chapter of her life. “Ultimately, I made the decision that got me where I am today,” she admitted. “It was my actions that put me in the position that I’m in. I think it’s important that I sit here on this stage and tell you that if you do go through this, you yourself can get through it. You can get to the other side.”