Demi Lovato: Promoters Gave Me Cocaine, I Hid My Cutting, I Puked Six Times A Day
April 23, 2012 by Hollywoodite
Demi Lovato gave another interview focusing on her recovery. It’s becoming passe, and there’s not much left to parse at this point. We know she’s a recovering cutter, user, drinker, and bulimic, with other emotional and behavioural issues. She got help, appeared to rush therapy, then left admitting she’s stuck in the same behaviours as before. For example, admitting that she’s still vomiting and cutting. It’s a process.
But there’s a little more detail to be gleaned from this interview with the UK’s Fabulous Magazine for which there’s also a photo shoot. Lovato admits from whence the drugs came, why she took them, and for how long she got away with it. In brief: she was spoon-fed drugs and alcohol by enabler “friends” who wanted her name to promote their venues. She took drugs for the same reason other celebrities do… following the high of being on-stage, or on set, sitting alone in a hotel room is too big a come down and narcotics balance that out. She was also vomiting several times a day and becoming a better cutter once the press noticed the marks on her wrists.
On having her photo taken: “I felt uncomfortable today [at the shoot]. Knowing I have bad angles and the photographer can take a bad shot makes me insecure. But I’m a lot better than I used to be. In my first shoot after having treatment, I went into meltdown and ran away from the studio. So I’ve made progress.”
On her eating disorder: “I’d make myself sick up to six times a day. My mum was worried, but because I was going through puberty I was having growth spurts so she assumed that was why I was thinner.”
On why she took cocaine: “It’s something I don’t really want to talk about What I can say is that I was depressed. I would come off stage in front of 18,000 people and suddenly be alone in a hotel room. I’d come crashing down and would try to find a way to recreate that feeling, to stay ‘up.’”
On work pressure compounding the problem: “I went from movie to album to touring to television and back,” she says. “Being in the limelight wasn’t the root of my problems, but it didn’t help. I never took more than two weeks off in four years and it caught up with me.”
On who gave her the drugs: “Promoters gave me drugs and alcohol in restaurants or clubs. They wanted me to come back so I would be seen there. They were basically kissing my a**,” she says, a flash of anger briefly interrupting her sunny demeanour. “I thought they were my friends. I thought I was having fun. Being a celebrity can be dangerous. Nobody says ‘no.’ That’s why so many end up overdosing and dying. It could definitely have happened to me.”
On cutting herself: “It started with my wrists. People saw that, so I cut in places they couldn’t see. You do it because you feel so bad inside. You don’t know how to take it out other than on yourself.”
On why she entered rehab: “It wasn’t my idea, but I didn’t fight it. It was really, really hard and scary. I was homesick and lonely and several times I thought f**k it, I’m leaving. But my mum told me I would regret it. This was my only chance. I had 14-hours of therapy a day. I listened to music and learned to knit. When I finally left, it was like being let out of prison.”
On why she didn’t quit an admittedly-damaging job: “I didn’t know if I’d be able to go back to work, but I knew I would get so bored. I couldn’t see myself going to college or working nine-to-five.”
But she won’t start acting again yet: ”I need to be secure in my body before I go back in front of the camera. Anyone in recovery from an eating disorder would find that triggering, and I’m not ready.”
On being a size a UK 10-12 (US size six to eight) again: “After so long being thin, it was terrifying being heavier. But I am a naturally curvy Hispanic girl. I don’t deprive myself. I had a Kit Kat last night, but I don’t eat s**t every day. I have a meal service that brings my food to my home so I don’t have to think about being healthy.”
On whether therapy worked: Although she no longer drinks, Demi admits that she has self-harmed and made herself throw up since leaving rehab. “I’ve slipped up a few times, but each time I have learned from it, and it’s become further apart,” she says.
On her love life: “I’m not dating at all. I love having a boyfriend but need to be secure on my own first.”
On her regrets: ”There were times I wish I’d been a normal teenager so I could make mistakes and not be scrutinised. But I don’t mourn the childhood I never had. I’d rather have been travelling the world and making albums than at high school.” – via Fabulous Magazine.
