Demi Lovato is getting real about her relapse and journey back to sobriety.
The 27-year-old singer opened up about her experience with substance abuse and addiction during Thursday’s (March 5) appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
“I first got sober when I was 19, which was an age that I wasn’t supposed to be drinking at all,” the singer told host Ellen DeGeneres. “I got the help I needed at the time and I took a ‘one size fits all’ approach and that was just sobriety.”
While Lovato said she found success with this approach, she’d been battling an eating disorder at the time that presented new challenges for her. “It led me to being really, really unhappy,” she added. “My bulimia got really bad. I asked for help, but didn’t get the help that I needed. I was six years sober, but I was miserable. I was more miserable than when I was drinking.”
Of her bulimia battle, Lovato said: "I lived a life for the past six years that I felt like wasn't my own. My life, I just felt it was controlled by so many people around me.'If I was in my hotel room at night they would take out my phone so I couldn't call room service.’ If there was fruit in my room they took it out because it was extra sugar."
Fans will be happy to know Lovato has developed a more positive relationship with food since then. “For many years I didn't even have a birthday cake. This year when I turned 27, I have a new team and Scooter Braun, my manager, gave me the best birthday cake,” she told Ellen. "If you do go through this, you can get through it. It may be bumpy but as long as you take the responsibility, you can move past it and love yourself."
As fans know, Lovato suffered from a near-fatal overdose in July 2018 after relapsing earlier that year. She marked her road to sobriety months later, celebrating her first 90 days sober since the scary incident. Last month, the superstar made her long-awaited comeback with a powerful ballad titled “Anyone,” with a new single titled “I Love Me” on the way.
Photo: YouTube/The Ellen DeGeneres Show