“When I started aging, I started to realize how weird I really am,” says Lovato, beaming. “Last year, I was engaged to a man and, when it didn’t work, I thought: This is a great sign. I thought I was going to spend my life with someone. Now that I wasn’t going, I felt a sense of relief at being able to live my truth. “
Like many singles in their early 20s, she is exploring this terrain through casual encounters. And right now, says Lovato, she feels “too weird” to be with a cis man.
“I stayed with a girl and thought, ‘I like this a lot more.’ I felt better. It felt right, ”she says. “Some of the guys I was seeing – when it came time to be sexual or intimate, I would have that kind of visceral reaction. Like, ‘I just don’t want to put my mouth in there.’ It wasn’t even based on the person I was with. I just found out that I really enjoyed the friendships of those people more than the romance, and I didn’t want the romance of anyone of the opposite sex. “
“I was like, ‘Bitch, you should have trusted yourself.'”
Proenza jacket. Jennifer Fisher earrings. The M Jewelers ring. Jennifer Fisher’s ring.Frankly, it took Lovato a minute to want romance in general. The new documentary tracks this 2020 relationship mentioned above, from engagement to breakup; when things were over, Lovato found himself wondering if he would ever be able to open up to another person again.
“As I denied my intuition of all the red flags that came up, I had no one else to blame but myself,” she says. “So I thought, ‘How am I going to trust again?’ But seriously, I was like, ‘Bitch, you should have trusted yourself. If you had trusted yourself, you would not have ended up in this position. ‘”
As soon as Lovato stopped seeing herself as a victim of that situation, she was able to move on. “My heart is wide open,” she says. “I am listening to my intuition a lot, and that does not mean that my limits or my guard are lifted. I’m just saying that my ears are a little higher and my eyes are a little more open. “
When our 70-minute call to Zoom ends, Lovato’s song “I Love Me” pops up in my head instantly. “I wonder when ‘I love myself’ is enough?” she asks herself several times in the chorus, determined to find an answer. And it looks like she found one – but it’s more than just loving yourself. She is checking herself now. Appearing by itself. Blocking out the noise and following your instincts.
Whether building your dream cloud room or reframing your approach to sobriety, Demi Lovato’s path is finally, completely yours. “Nothing that people say or do is really going to change the way I live,” she says. For the first time, she is at home.
Christopher Rosa is the entertainment editor at Glam. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.