Demi Lovato, 28, is giving credit to the 1999 movie Cruel Intentions when it comes to realizing she was queer. The singer sat down for an interview with Queer Eye‘s Tan France during Facebook’s Coming Out 2020 event, which aired on Oct. 9, and when he asked her to describe the moment she realized she was “queer in general”, she brought up her experience in watching the famous kissing scene between Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar in the film. “It was definitely when I was young and should not have been watching Cruel Intentions but I did and it was that scene where they made out on the park lawn,” she told Tan in the interview.
“I was just like ‘Oh wait a minute — I really like that, I wanna try it,” she added while laughing. “And then when I was like 17 I did get down with that and that’s when I knew. That’s the tea.”
The Cruel Intentions scene Demi’s referring to got a lot of attention when it was first released so Demi’s surely not the only viewer who was impacted by it! In the epic movie moment, Sarah’s character, Kathryn Merteuil was teaching Selma’s character, Cecile Caldwell, how to kiss and get to first base. “Haven’t you ever practiced on one of your girlfriends?” Kathryn asks before they lock lips in the scene. Once it was over, Cecile simply but effectively says, “That was cool.”
In addition to discussing her experience in watching Cruel Intentions, Demi admitted to Tan that she started telling people she was queer around the age of 17. “I pretty much told all of my friends and my older sister when I was 17,” she said. “They all knew before I brought it to my parents and then to the public. Those were my three phases: Friends, parents, public.”
She also talked about using her songwriting talents to express her feelings about other women. “There were times I wrote songs about girls that my fans thought I wrote about guys,” she explained. “I’m surprised that some of them didn’t figure out that some of the songs were for certain people. I was sharing it with the world, yet I wasn’t being completely obvious with what I was talking about. Music was my safe space.”
Demi has previously described herself as “very fluid” when it comes to her sexuality and openly been involved with both women and men. Her latest relationship was with actor Max Ehrich, 29, who she started dating earlier this year. They were engaged by July but sadly, by Sept. 24, things were over between them.