Singer Demi Lovato discussed her near-fatal overdose while speaking with Ellen DeGeneres, which she says was a result of an eating disorder and abandonment issues.
The 27-year-old singer relives her 2018 relapse and subsequent overdose inn the emotional and empowering interview. She claimed that she was forced to question her six years of sobriety due to her birth father’s addictive ways coupled with her management’s controlling ways.
Lovato shares, “My core issues are abandonment from my birth father as a child. He was an addict, alcoholic, we had to leave him. And I have vivid memories of him leaving, so when [my team] left, they totally played on that fear and I felt completely abandoned, so I drank.” She adds, “I didn’t know that until today too, but I lived a life for the past six years that I felt wasn’t my own because I struggled really hard with an eating disorder, yes, and that was my primary problem and then it turned into other things. My life, I just felt it was so… and I hate to use this word, but I felt it was controlled, by so many people around me.”
She adds, “For many years, I didn’t even have a birthday cake. I had a watermelon cake, where you cut your watermelon into the shape of a cake and you put fat-free whipped cream on top and that was your cake.”
“I just really wanted birthday cake, so this year when I turned 27, you know, I have a new team, and Scooter Braun, my manager, gave me the best birthday cake. I spent it with Ariana Grande, who is one of my good friends, and we just had the best birthday and I just remember crying because I was finally eating cake with a manager that didn’t need anything from me and that loved me for who I am and supported my journey. I think at some point it becomes dangerous to try to control someone’s food when they’re in recovery from an eating disorder.”
