Demi Lovato has endured a lot during her journey from Disney star to pop phenom. The singer has publicly struggled with disordered eating, her mental health, and her drug addiction. In 2018, she was hospitalized after suffering a heroin overdose that caused her to have three strokes, a heart attack, and blind spots in her vision. She’s now revealing that surviving the harrowing ordeal isn’t as simple as living through it — she’s also had to navigate complexities like survivor’s guilt.
In an upcoming interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Billboard reports, Lovato discussed the hard emotions they had to deal with after her near-death experience. Just two months after their overdose, Mac Miller tragically died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cocaine, and alcohol. Miller’s death rocked the music world with deep sadness, and Lovato felt the loss in a personal way. She sings about it on “Dead Friends,” a song from her record Holy Fvck, which drops on Friday, Aug. 19.
“I’ve made friends of all ages. I’ve lost friends that were around my age, and those hurt so deeply because we’ve been in the trenches together,” she told Lowe. “I had a lot of survivor’s guilt after my overdose because … right after that, Mac Miller died, and it just put everything into perspective for me of, ‘That could have been you, that almost was you, and how are you going to live your life now?’ And it affected me a lot.”
Since Lovato’s overdose, she’s used her art and her visibility to talk about the issue. She released the single “Sober” in June 2018, and continued to speak about her journey in 2021 with her album, Dancing with the Devil...the Art of Starting Over, and a docuseries called Dancing with the Devil.
Lovato clearly attributes some of her hardships to having grown up a child star. She also revealed to Lowe that she doesn’t think that young teens should be inking intense contracts with record labels. “In your teens, people who aren’t in the spotlight are still trying to figure themselves out,” she explained. “They’re going to parties. They’re making mistakes. And it’s like, if you’re a 15-year-old and you’re making mistakes, it’s magnified. I don’t know. If I were to have kids and they came to me and said, ‘Mom, I want to be in the industry,’ I would have to say, ‘Please wait until you’re 18.’”
The singer also recently drew attention when she reintegrated she/her pronouns into her identity, after coming out as non-binary in 2021 and requesting to be referred to with they/them. Earlier this month, she visited the Spout podcast, during which they said they had “been feeling more feminine.” She continued, “I’m such a fluid person when it comes to my gender, my sexuality, my music, my creativity,” adding that when it comes to pronouns, “It’s just all about respect.” Lovato also revealed to Spout that she was sober for the entire creation of Holy Fvck, a wonderful achievement she is “so proud of.”
