Demi Lovato reveals the abuse she faced due to her team

Demi Lovato recently appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show where she spoke at length about the issues that led to her overdose back in July 2018.

Demi told Ellen that at that time, she had broken her six-year sobriety only three months prior to the overdose. She attributed the major issue to the controlling nature of her old team as well as the general unhappiness she felt, in regards to everything that grew overtime.

She was quoted saying, “I have to preface it with the fact that I got sober at 19. So I got sober at an age where I wasn't even legally allowed to drink. I got the help that I needed at the time and I took on the approach of a one size fits all solution, which is sobriety, just sobriety. And so my whole team took that approach and we did it. And we ran with it, and it worked for a long time.”

“But I realised that over time as the things with the eating disorder were getting bad, I mean, over the years it got progressively worse and worse with people checking what my orders at Starbucks were on my bank statements. Just little things like that led me to being really, really unhappy. My bulimia got really bad and I asked for help and I didn't receive the help that I needed. And so I was stuck in this unhappy position. Here I am sober and I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm six years sober, but I'm miserable. I'm even more miserable than I was when I was drinking. Why am I sober?'"

“And I sent a message out, and I reached out to the people that were on my team, and they responded with like, "You’re being very selfish. This would ruin things for not just you but for us as well." And when I heard that, my core issues are abandonment from my birth father as a child. He was an addict, an alcoholic; like we had to leave him.”

“I have vivid memories of him leaving so when they left, they totally played on that fear, and I felt completely abandoned so I drank. That night I went to a party and there was other stuff there and it was only three months before I ended up in the hospital with an OD.”

Lovato further went onto emphasize that it was her own personal choice which led her to recover and share her story with the world.

She stated, “you know, ultimately, I made the decisions that got me to where I am today. It was my actions that put me in the position that I'm in. And I think it's important that I sit here on this stage and tell you at home or you in the audience or you right here that if you do go through this, you yourself can get through it.”

“You can get to the other side and it may be bumpy, but you are a 10 out of 10, like don't forget it. And as long as you take the responsibility you can move past it and learn to love yourself the way you deserve to be loved.”

The singer and songwriter also went onto detail how her eating disorder perpetuated her feelings of unhappiness. The reason behind that is because her team would constrict her calorie consumption on a daily basis. This in turn contributed to her use of drugs.

After hearing Demi speak at length about these issues DeGeneres chimed in revealing how her team would make sure that should not be any sugar on the Ellen show while Demi visited.

Demi was surprised by that bit of news. "I didn't know that until today too, 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," Lovato said. "But my life, I just felt it was so...and I hate to use this word, but I felt it was controlled, by so many people around me,” she admitted.

Demi went into great detail to explain the differences between her team in the past and her current one. She stated, “If I was in my hotel room at night, they would take the phone out of the hotel room so I couldn’t call room service. Or if there was fruit in my room they would take it out because that was extra sugar. We’re not talking about brownies and cookies and candies and stuff like that, it was fruit.”

“And for many years, I didn't even have a birthday cake. I had a watermelon cake, where you cut your watermelon into the shape of a cake and you put fat free whipped cream on top and that was your cake. And so for years I did that and it kind of became this ongoing joke.”

“But I just really wanted birthday cake, so this year when I turned 27, you know, I have a new team, and Scooter Braun, my manager, gave me the best birthday cake. And I spent it with Ariana Grande, who is one of my good friends, and we just had the best birthday and I just remember crying because I was finally eating cake with a manager that didn't need anything from me and that loved me for who I am and supported my journey.”

“I think at some point it becomes dangerous to try to control someone's food when they're in recovery from an eating disorder.”

Demi concluded by revealing that she now feels at peace with herself and wishes the same onto others. "We are good by ourselves, we don't need a partner, we don't need substances. We’re good."