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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.
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