Dancing with the Devil it is Demi in its most authentic and autobiographical form.
Photo: Demi Lovato / YouTube
For the past nine years, Demi Lovato has revealed and unraveled a history of trauma, layer by layer, in the form of a documentary. First, with that of 2012 hold tight, who starred in a seemingly sober Lovato and detailed his post-rehabilitation recovery at age 18. (She later revealed that she was using it while filming.) Her 2017 document, Simply complicated, was charged as an “apology” to fans who revealed the true depths of their addiction and narrated the production of their noisy R&B album Say that you Love Me, released that fall. But, as she makes clear in her latest four-part series of YouTube Originals documents Dancing with the Devil – directed by Michael Ratner and coinciding with the release of her next album of the same name – Demi really only allowed viewers, cameras and even those closest to her to see how much she wanted them to see. So far.
Dancing with the Devil it is Demi in its most authentic and autobiographical form. She relives the night of her near-fatal 2018 overdose in meticulous detail and speaks openly about how years of micromanagement of her recovery led to a breaking point; she shares allegations of sexual abuse for the first time; she reflects on how all of these experiences finally set her free. With comments from Demi’s loved ones, social worker, former assistant, doctor, chief of security and even Elton John, Dancing with the Devil it is finally your unfiltered truth. Here’s what we learned along the way.
Demi filmed another complete and unpublished documentary.
After the launch of Simply complicated and Say that you Love Me, Demi filmed an entire documentary in 2018 that recorded her life on tour. Although it appeared on the screen that Demi was not holding on, she hid much of her reality. “In that documentary, I was allowing the cameras to see the tip of the iceberg,” she recalls. However, there is a vulnerable moment during a break from the tour, which seems to portray the anguish that Demi was experiencing: “I have been working to try to be free for 13 years”. While certain clips from the unreleased document are included in the latest documentation, after Demi was hospitalized for an overdose, the version started in 2018 has been permanently archived. All filming stopped until she started making her new documentation in the spring of 2020.
Control over her eating disorder and sobriety made her unhappy.
Demi has been fighting an eating disorder since she was 8 and, before her relapse in 2018, she employed a team of assistants, a wellness coach, a nutritionist, a nutritionist and therapists to help her. Still, his eating problems persisted to the point that he began to break his own inner circle; friends and team members say they need to be careful about what they eat near them. “There were times when I had to spend the night because she, like, ate a cookie,” recalls Jordan Jackson, his former assistant. Although her friend Matthew Scott Montgomery believes her team was created to help her avoid a relapse, “the shot backfired”. “Control and restraint were very toxic for her and she was unhappy,” he says. According to Lovato, outsourcing the management of her eating habits and well-being took her agency away: “I feel that the decisions were made by me, more than myself,” she says.
A month after her sixth birthday was sober, Demi had a relapse.
Lovato celebrated her sixth year sober on stage with DJ Khaled at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on March 15, 2018. But one night, just a month later, she says she picked up a bottle of red wine and within 30 minutes called someone she knew had drugs. “I remember being in a photo shoot and thinking to myself, I don’t even remember anymore why I’m sober. I am so unhappy. I am not happy, “she says. Later that night, at a party, she met her drug dealer six years earlier.” That night I used drugs that I had never used before, “recalls Demi.” I had never used meth before. I mixed it up. with molly, coca, marijuana, alcohol, oxycodone and that alone should have killed me. ”
She started using heroin and crack for the first time in 2018.
The singer started using heroin for recreational purposes not long after a relapse, but soon realized that “recreational” use would not be a long-term possibility for her. After traveling to Bali a few weeks later, where he would write “Sober” – revealing that he was no longer without drugs and alcohol – Demi discovered that he was “physically dependent” on crack and heroin; his drug use at the time is captured in the film through personal photos and videos of Demi.
On the night of Demi’s overdose, no one knew she was using heavy drugs.
Demi told people in her life that, after being sober since she was 19, she wanted to try drinking and smoking again “for fun”. Lovato didn’t warn anyone that he was using heavy drugs, admitting that she intentionally “manipulated” those closest to her so they wouldn’t find out. On July 24, 2018, after her friend Dani Vitale’s birthday party and a night of bar-hopping, Demi invited her friends to come home to continue the night, but they refused. While she told them she was going to bed, she actually ended up calling her drug dealer. In his account of the night, Vitale remembers feeling uncomfortable about leaving Demi’s house. “We were halfway home and stopped, and I looked at my friend Janelle and I said, Do you feel weird, and she says, I feel weird. Should we have stayed? And I’m like, What she will do? She is going to bed. No she is fine. “
Her then assistant found her the morning of her overdose.
Demi’s assistant, Jordan Jackson, came to her home the morning after the party to take her to a doctor’s appointment. When Lovato did not answer several knock on his bedroom door, Jordan entered the room and found Lovato naked, on her back, with vomit around her. Jackson thought she was drunk or hungover, but upon realizing that Lovato was not responding, she called Max Lea, Demi’s head of security. As more members of Demi’s team came to help, the situation became dire. “There was a point where she went blue – her whole body went completely blue. I was like, she’s dead for sure. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, ”recalls Jordan. Eventually, Jordan sneaked down the stairs to call 9-1-1, fearing he might have trouble calling; to contain the expected attention of the media, she is heard on a recording of the call asking for “no siren”, but is warned by emergency services that could not be guaranteed. It wasn’t long before Demi’s condition became a national headline.
Demi was on the verge of death.
After the overdose, Demi suffered three strokes, a heart attack and brain damage due to the strokes; because she was asphyxiated, she had pneumonia and multiple organ failure. “I am very lucky to be alive. My doctors said I had five to ten more minutes and my assistant did not come, I would not be here today, ”says Demi at point blank range.
Demi woke up in the hospital blindly.
The singer’s brain damage specifically affected her vision center, to the point that Lovato woke up legally blind and remained that way for the next two months. Although his younger sister, Madison De La Garza, was beside her bed, Lovato was unable to recognize her. Demi revealed that since the overdose she can no longer drive and still has blind spots in her vision. “Sometimes, when I’m going to pour a glass of water, I miss the glass very much because I can’t see it anymore,” says Demi.
She was reportedly sexually abused the night of her overdose.
On the night of her overdose, Lovato says that her drug dealer provided her with what she believed to be “after-sale” (or counterfeit) remedies mixed with fentanyl. While the drug dealer remains nameless in the documentary, a security footage of the driveway shows the man leaving the scene. “He ended up leaving her very high and leaving her to die,” says Demi’s musician and friend, Sirah. In addition to giving her drugs, Lovato claims that her drug dealer physically took advantage of her. “I had a glimpse of him on top of me,” recalls Demi. When interviewed by hospital staff immediately after her overdose and asked if she had consensual sex that night, Lovato said: “I [saw] that flash and said ‘yes’. Only a month after my overdose did I realize, ‘Hey, you weren’t in any frame of mind to make a consensual decision.’ ”(The drug dealer in question has already been charged with“ heroin and ketamine possession ”unrelated to Lovato’s case; Lovato did not press charges until publication.)