Everything We Learned From 'Demi Lovato: Dancing With The Devil'

The following article includes mentions of eating disorders, drug addiction, physical and emotional abuse, and sexual assault.

Documentaries are one of the most intimate forms of art a celebrity can release. When they're done well, the subject lets viewers into private aspects of their everyday lives and talks openly about their life trials and triumphs. Streaming platforms have created a surge in popularity for documentaries, and musicians in particular are using the films to take control of their stories. Per The Guardian, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and even the Jonas Brothers, for example, have released successful docs to let fans see sides of them we never have before.

Singer Demi Lovato arguably likes making documentaries the most out of all of her musical peers. Before 2021, Lovato released two — 2012's Demi Lovato: Stay Strong and 2017's Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated. But according to her friend, Sarah Elizabeth "Sirah" Mitchell, in the 2021 docuseries, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, "This is the first time where we're really telling the truth, you know? For her."

Dancing with the Devil centers on the circumstances leading up to, during, and after Lovato's 2018 drug overdose — meaning that her truth is complex, sad, and hopeful all at once. We gathered every major reveal from Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil in one place, because now that Lovato is being the most honest she's ever been with fans, there was a lot to learn from the four-part docuseries.

Demi Lovato has revealed that her late father, Patrick Lovato, was physically and emotionally abusive to her mother, Dianna De La Garza, as De La Garza confirmed in her 2018 memoir (via People). In episode one of Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, De La Garza revealed that Demi "was around for some of the abuse," adding, "Sometimes I feel like that stayed with her for many years when I didn't know that she probably needed to work with a professional to work through some of that."

Patrick also struggled with mental health issues and addiction, and their history led to an estrangement. Demi shared in Dancing with the Devil that she cut him out of her life he died in 2013, and explained that his death was "complicated" because no one knows the exact date he died. Demi also admitted that it's hard for her to wonder what day her father died, knowing that by Father's Day he was deceased. 

"That was the fear that I always had for him, was that he would end up alone — and he did. He died alone," she said. "... I also felt a lot of guilt over the years, because I've been such an advocate for mental health ... yet here was my father, who had bipolar and schizophrenia and then on top of that the disease of addiction, and I hadn't helped him the way that I would've helped other people."

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224. You can also find more information, resources, and support at www.thehotline.org.

"The 27 Club" is the nickname given to the group of celebrities who tragically died at the age of 27. Some of the most well-known people who died at this age are Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Jonathan Brandis, and Amy Winehouse.

Demi Lovato's friend, Matthew Scott Montgomery, revealed in episode two of Dancing with the Devil that he was relieved when she made it to her 28th birthday. "When she turned 28 this past year, this is pretty morbid, but we kind of were like, 'You made it to 28, yes! You survived The 27 Club,'" he said. "In a way, it's like probably a subconscious, self-fulfilled prophecy. But what's different is she lived through it." Indeed, the neurologist who treated Lovato when she arrived at the hospital, Dr. Shouri Lahiri, also explained that the singer was lucky she hadn't experienced more long-term side effects of her experience. "It's not very common that you'd see someone with a drug-related overdose, with this degree of multi-organ failure, that would come out of it relatively unscathed and do as well as she has," he said.

Of surviving to tell her story today, Lovato said, "It's like a nice reminder that it wasn't my time, you know? That there was more life to be lived."

Demi Lovato talked about more than one alleged sexual assault in the Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil. "I've had my fair share of sexual trauma throughout childhood, teenage years," the "Warrior" singer said in episode two. Along with talking about the alleged sexual assault the night she overdosed, Lovato said in episode three, "I lost my virginity in a rape," adding, "We were hooking up, but I said, 'Hey, this is not going any farther, I'm a virgin, and I don't want to lose it this way.' And that didn't matter to them. They did it anyways. And I internalized it, and I told myself that it was my fault, because I still went in the room with him. I still hooked up with him."

She said that even though she was part of the group of Disney kids that "publicly said they were waiting for marriage," her first experience with sex was nothing like the way she was expected to talk about sex in public. "I didn't have the romantic like first time with anybody. That was not it for me and that sucked," Lovato continued. "... Women are typically more repressed than men, especially at 15 years old and especially as a little child star role model, who's supposed to be 'perfect.'" 

Lovato didn't name her alleged abuser, but said that she reported the incident, and the person was allowed to keep their job in an unnamed movie. Lovato also said her destructive behaviors got worse as a result.

After her 2018 overdose, Demi Lovato went to The Cirque Lodge for rehab, but she admitted in Dancing with the Devil that her aforementioned relapse came shortly after leaving an "intensive trauma retreat." Lovato explained that she called her former drug dealer, and admitted she got high. "I wanted to rewrite his choice of violating me. I wanted it now to be my choice," she said. "... I thought, 'How did I pick up the same drugs that put me in the hospital?' I was, like, mortified at my decisions." 

The relapse did not give Lovato the feelings she was searching for. "It didn't fix anything, it didn't take anything away — it just made me feel worse," she said. "But that for some reason was my way of taking the power back. All it did was bring me back to my knees of begging to God for help." Lovato also confessed that when she was 15, she did something similar with the alleged rapist who took her virginity, saying, "I called that person back a month later and tried to make it right by being in control, and all it did was just make me feel worse." 

As case manager Charles Cook explained of Lovato's journey, "How do we help you create a life where to have a sense of autonomy does not mean putting yourself in these harmful situations? That being able to, you know, abuse your abuser is not where the healing is going to come from?"

Demi Lovato has been open about her eating disorder ever since the 2012 documentary, Demi Lovato: Stay Strong. After her rehab stay around this time, her management, then led by Phil McIntyre, put rules in place to manage the singer's bulimia. "I used to have people watching me the night before a photo shoot to make sure that I didn't binge or eat and be swollen the next day," Lovato told Bustle in 2020, revealing that her team wouldn't get her a regular cake on her birthday. Instead, they bought her a cake made out of watermelon with low-fat whipped cream on top.

Those watermelon cakes inspired the song "Melon Cake" on Lovato's latest album, Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over. In episode four of her 2021 docuseries, Lovato celebrates her birthday by having three actual birthday cakes. "We had this kind of 'aha' moment where it's like, 'This is okay. We can have three birthday cakes, because it is your birthday, and we are celebrating it. And this is something we're sharing together,'" said friend Matthew Scott Montgomery. "And I watched her in real-time realize that was something she could do, and it was really beautiful."

"That's the best part about my life today is that I'm in control of it and what I eat is my decision, what I don't eat is my decision. What I do is my decision," Lovato said, noting she's thankful for her new management team.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorder Association's Helpline at 1-800-931-2237 or chat with one of their helpline volunteers on NEDA's website.

Demi Lovato hasn't been completely clean and sober since her post-rehab relapse. Instead, she is what she calls "California Sober," per a song on her 2021 album. "I've learned that it doesn't work for me to say, 'I'm never going to do this again," Lovato admitted in episode four of Dancing with the Devil. Noting that she's "done" with the hard drugs that could "kill" her, she admitted that she's "been smoking weed and drinking in moderation."

But Lovato is clear that her approach isn't one that will work for everyone. "[I don't] want people to hear that and think that they can just go out and try having a drink or smoking a joint," she said. "Because it isn't for everybody. Recovery isn't a one-size-fits-all solution."

It should be noted that interventionist and trauma specialist Ken Seely disagrees with the idea that sobriety can look different for addicts. "You might not do heroin, but you may smoke pot. But the reality here [is that there] is no moderation for people that suffer with addiction," he told ET. "You can't just turn it off." Stating that "California sober" isn't a medical term, Seely claimed that Lovato's current lifestyle is "nowhere near sober."

While not everyone agrees with approaching recovery through moderation rather than abstinence, we're just glad to hear that Lovato has found control in her life in a way that works best for her.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse and mental health, please contact SAMHSA's 24-hour National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).