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Last month, Demi Lovato visited Ashley Graham’s podcast. She spoke about her eating disorder. her overdose, and a connection between the two that took her a while to realize. Demi believed that she was in recovery and was working out excessively to the point where she was spending enough time at the gym that she’d take meetings there. She “was still being pushed to maintain a certain body type.” Demi overdosed in July 2018.
Demi was on Ellen’s show to talk about her new single, “I Love Me.” Demi also talked about her eating disorder. (The clip is below.) Both Demi and Ellen found out that same day that Demi’s previous team had removed anything with sugar in it that was in Demi’s dressing or hotel room. That included fruit.
On Thursday’s episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Lovato, 27, debuted a clip of her upcoming new single “I Love Me” and spoke about how she came to embrace the song’s uplifting message after struggling with feeling “controlled” during her eating disorder recovery.
“So you’ve been honest about your eating disorder,” host Ellen DeGeneres began the interview. “I just learned today that when you came for the last six years — you’re no longer with this team — but there was a team that used to handle everything before you got here. They were told to hide all of the sugar and put everything away so that when you got to your dressing room, even backstage, there was no sugar anywhere near. Did you know that was happening?”
“I didn’t know that until today too,” Lovato said. “But I lived a life for the past six years that I felt like 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, but my life, I just felt was — I hate to use this word, but I felt like it was controlled by so many people around me.”
That’s incredibly disturbing, and yes, it is controlling and abusive. Demi also said that her team used to take the phone out of her hotel room so she couldn’t order room service and would remove any fruit (because of the sugar). For years she had a “watermelon cake” on her birthday, which was a watermelon cut into the shape of a cake with fat-free whipped cream on it.
What the hell? I don’t understand, and Demi never says, WHO was telling her team to remove the fruit, take away her hotel phone, and take anything sugary out of dressing rooms. Was it someone else on the team? She’s no longer working with him, so that’s good, but I’m still curious as to whether this was a team decision, or if it came from someone else.
Ellen said that Demi should eat whatever she wants “and not withhold” anything from herself. Demi agreed and said that her new single is about loving herself, and a reminder that, “We are good by ourselves.” Demi seems to be in a great place, which is wonderful to see. Ellen also says some beautiful things about her at the start of the clip. She texts Demi after every performance, and has had her on the show 10 times. It’s clear that she adores Demi, and Demi loves her right back. It might sound silly, but may each of you have someone who speaks of you the way that Ellen speaks about Demi, and, best of all, who tells you those wonderful things personally. It just made me so happy that Ellen was so upfront in her love for Demi. Most of the time, I think we censor ourselves and only save a lot of compliments for birthdays and holidays. We should compliment each other more often.
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or visit their website for more information.
I’m not a big fan of her work, but I really root for Demi Lovato to do well. I’m assuming it was her manager that was making these decisions since she made a point to note that scooter Braun is not that way and how nice it was to have a manager that supported her well-being. I know people have opinions on scooter as a manager, but Justin, Ariana, and Demi seem to have a lot of good things to say about him these days.
And then we wonder why all these young stars end in rehab.
“Demi also said that her team used to take the phone out of her hotel room so she couldn’t order room service and would remove any fruit (because of the sugar).”
Wasn’t there a story a few years ago about them ALSO taking her phone away because she kept calling drug dealers and hangers on? Didn’t they try to cut some pretty shitty people from her life? I do wonder how much of that was to do with food, and how much was to do with the drug situation.
The food thing is genuinely f-cked up, though. That’s some serious abuse, and I have to wonder how she managed to function. It’s not wise to just cut ALL sugar out of your diet. We NEED some level of sugars. She must have felt absolutely awful.
There isn’t any good reason to take an adult woman’s phone, no matter who she is choosing to call, unless she has specifically asked someone to do that.
“We should compliment each other more often.”
Daily. Strangers, friends, family. When we go to sleep at night, the scales should weigh heavier toward the positive, and with me, I’ve found complimenting others is one of my strengths (I don’t have many). I’m a negative, cynical, pessimistic vampire, but have genuine love in my heart and sharing that is pretty much everything to me lol. You rock Celebitchy.
Aw, Mabs. That is more than a strength, I’d say it’s superpower. So very few people go out of their way to be kind. I feel like this world would be a much better place if more people got out of their own heads and fears for a bit and just acknowledged that we are all on this planet together, facing similar struggles every damn day.
True.
I have started in my workplace, I have always said ‘thank you’ but recently I have started writing in my emails, to people I work more often with “I really appreciate your collaboration” or things like “have a nice week”.
it makes wonder.
And now I am doing with my close friends.
Yes! I have a personal rule that if I *think* a compliment, I try to say it. I was volunteering on Super Tuesday and complimented several voters on their shoes and the dudes I was with were confounded. One even told me, “But she’s a republican.” But you know what? If I’m going in to vote with cute shoes, I would appreciate it if someone told me, too! Maybe this is what heals our country – one “cute shoes!” compliment at a time.
It feels like with every album Demi is dealing with… something. She’s really just had a lot of demons and a lot of drama in her young life. I hope she can just wake up one day and really just be happy with herself and take care of herself in a healthy way.
I hate doing the groceries every week, so each time I go I try to compliment someone while I’m there to brighten their day. I find it puts me in a better mood while I’m there too and overall there just isn’t enough happiness or complimentary stuff happening on the daily. I’m not a fan of Demi’s music but I find I’m always rooting for her. I like that she’s so open with her challenges.
This is nice! I do that too – when I see someone wearing something great, for example, I tell them.
She’s really had a rough road. It’s good to see her healthy and talking about her struggles. It’s nice that she has Ellen in her corner, too. Having friends who support you is a very big deal!
Anyone that tries to give me a ‘watermelon cake’ for my birthday is going to leave very shortly afterwards wearing it.
A good friend of mine has been obsessed with the keto diet for almost three years. She did a whole pregnancy with it. The whole time she’s been exercising and especially in the past year has become an exercise fiend. She’s always at the gym. She never ever ever eats anything sweet, ever. She gave up all sugar. No booze, no candy, cookies, cakes, pies, bread, pasta, sugary Starbucks drinks, soda, or even fruit. Rarely a starchy veggie. That’s just the list of sweeter items she won’t eat because of sugar. Does she look good? Yep. But it’s not sustainable long term. She’s the most stressed I’ve ever seen her and that’s saying something because I’m stressed all the time. Nothing will change her mind. I’ve tried. We don’t even have dinner anymore like we used to because she won’t eat anything and always declines. Won’t go to a movie because she can’t stop herself from eating the popcorn. Always sucking down liquid ketones. I worry about her and the first thing I thought when I read this headline was about her. Recently she said “I’m so glad I’m healthy because I was thisclose to having an eating disorder.” It took everything in me not to state that she actually does have one. Because she won’t listen to me. She listens to her “life coach” who is her MLM liquid ketones upline. 🙁
Yes I think that’s the slippery slope and like ur friend &demi thought working out avoiding sugar was a good thing but when it prevents u from seeing ur friends for dinner and u think u can’t have one frickin piece of cake for your birthday once a year that’s too controlling
@meg exactly. I exercise four to six days a week (mostly swimming or riding my bike or dancing for 30-60 minutes and then some light weight training for 20 minutes), eat lots of green veggies, lean protein and drink 64 oz. of water a day – more because I’m always thirsty. But I also eat apples which are high in sugar. Guess what? They’re good for me. My arse is gonna eat em. And this whole week I’ve been lounging around eating fast food. When I go out to eat I like to treat myself to a glass of wine. I’m not shedding weight like crazy but I’d rather take my time adjusting to more conscious habits and take a slower path to where I want to be than starving myself and beating up my body until I can barely walk. Science and history shows fad diets don’t work in the long run. And I worry what those liquid ketones are doing to people’s bodies. I took them for a little while because my friend wouldn’t get off my back about them. They tasted nasty, and gave me horrendous gastrointestinal issues. Do not recommend.
You are describing my mother! My mother went from bulimia to Keto, she carb shamed me my entire pregnancy. I am now convinced that for a lot of people keto is an eating disorder.
It’s all about control in some way. So being so in control that you don’t allow yourself ANY sugar? Yeah, that’s an eating disorder.
@faithmobile I feel sorry for your mom but also ffffff her for making you feel bad about enjoying bread while pregnant!
@originaltessa exactly. She needs to be in control of it because she feels out of control elsewhere.
That really does sound like an eating disorder. Nothing should be that obsessive.
Ugh sounds like my mom. And now my mom is having major health problems because her bone density is shot. Bones need calories!!!!!!
It’s been an interesting journey for my mom because she has always thought she was the healthiest of the healthy. She recently admitted she was embarrassed to tell me her nutritionist was not impressed with her food diary. She thought it was so impressive! All veggies and a little fish here and there. I was able to gently introduce the word anorexia – like, well mom, you do eat around 800 calories a day, which is typically considered severe calorie restriction or anorexia – and she didn’t get defensive. So that was cool. Doctors for the win!
I wonder what keto pregnancy does to a baby 🙁 so sad that society normalizes disordered eating behaviors 🙁
@Onomo I didn’t touch on it but I have daily contact for many hours a day with her baby. He’s almost two. And extremely bright and very healthy. I’ve worked in early childhood development for many years and I would say he is actually advanced. Highly verbal and a problem solver. So as much as I’d like to say it’s dangerous to expose a fetus to the diet, at least in my limited experience with said diet it has had no negative impact on him.
Years ago Oprah won an Emmy for her body of work in TV and looked slimmed down in this yellow dress and people took notice. She talked about her new trainer/nutritionist who said to avoid sugar. Well that night at the Emmys she wanted champagne to celebrate and called him asking if she could make an exception on that night and he said if you can live with it afterwards, something to that effect. And I thought wow one glass of champagne? He’s that controlling I can’t imagine that’s sustainable long term, and it wasn’t for Oprah either
Brooke Shields said something similar. She said she told her trainer she wanted a glass of wine, and he told her to “Go ahead… if you want to drink liquid bread and have it show up in your ass.” Seriously…I never forgot her telling that story! It’s like when Julianna Moore talked about how she’s *always* hungry, because she has to deprive herself to stay slim enough for designer gowns. Sad, sad, sad.
Those bad bad people were the only thing keeping her from hooking up with drug dealers so idk perhaps they had a point?
And why is she lying about having been on a strict diet for years? All her candid photos and concert videos from the time show her as being very visibly overweight – you don’t get like that from living on watermelons girl.
Perpetually gross, really. You do know that not all people dealing with eating disorders or on crash diets are super thin, right?
I have never seen this girl look overweight. Curvy, yes but not overweight. American women really need to knock it off with the need for everyone to be pin thin. Not every body is built to be a size 2.
This is such a mean spirited & evil comment. She has never been “very visible overweight” & I hope no woman who looks like Demi ever pays attention to your messed up barometer for other women’s bodies. I pray & hope you don’t have a daughter…
A grown woman should be advised, not controlled. You don’t give up drugs and sugar by paying people to keep them away from you, and it sounds like she didn’t know that they were doing it. She was being treated like a robot for $$$$$$$$.
And Otaku Fairy is correct: people with eating disorders don’t necessarily get rail thin. Many do, but there are all kinds of disordered eating. And a lot of non-fat stuff that people want to rely on makes people fat.
I hate what Hollywood does to people, especially girls and women. The pressure to look like someone the guy at the top wants to fuck is awful. These guys want control, and artists give it to them to work at what they love to do.
Well Hikaru aside from your gross comments about her weight guess what? You’re wrong. They didn’t keep her away from drugs. That’s sort of the whole point
Wow @Hikaru you suck. And yes you can have a severe life threatening eating disorder and still be fat. Imagine that.
when my bulimia was at it’s worst I was fat as a house.
😆😶😁 She also mentioned her crush on Rihanna, which I fucking LOVED. I always feel a little gleeful when other bisexual women in the public eye discuss this, because of all the biphobia and misogyny in society. It feels like a delightful little ‘F you’ to the victim-blaming directed at our communities (which sometimes also comes from within our communities).
It sounds like this is the start of Demi really getting healthy. She’ll probably battle these issues on and off throughout her life, especially with the added pressures/stress/trauma of young fame in a patriarchal society. Hopefully things go well for her. Her new song and video are nice.
I think she’s referring to her sobriety coach Mike Bayer, of Cast Centers. Demi was the face of Cast centers for a while. Mike is on Dr. Phil all the time, he’s written a book called Best Self or something like that.
I watched a clip on YouTube of this interview and she said they also went over her Starbucks receipts and her income/bank statements?! That is so extreme and controlling. I don’t even know what to say. God forbid a woman gain a pound or whatever.