Demi Lovato reveals she was sexually assaulted and 'left for dead' the night she overdosed: 'I was naked, blue'
Warning: This article includes details about sexual assault and it could be distressing
Just before the release of her tell-all documentary 'Dancing With the Devil', Demi Lovato has revealed several shocking details about her past. Lovato is also set to release her new studio album 'Dancing With the Devil... The Art of Starting Over'
Last week, the singer came out as queer, she has been candid about her history with drug abuse and now, she has revealed that an encounter with a drug dealer in 2018 saw her get sexually assaulted and left her near-death. According to an article published on March 16 by The New York Times, Lovato is sharing details about the encounter.
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After her July 2018 drug overdose that nearly saw Lovato losing her life, she woke up legally blind in an intensive care unit. It took about two months to get enough sight to read a book and she passed the time catching up on 10 years’ worth of sleep, playing board games or taking a single lap around the hospital floor for exercise. The New York Times shared that the singer's blind spots made it nearly impossible to see head-on, so she peered at her phone through her peripheral vision and typed using voice notes.
In an interview, Lovato said, "It was interesting how fast I adapted. I didn’t leave myself time to really feel sad about it. I just was like, how do I fix it?” Lovato speaks of her relapse and overdose in her upcoming documentary, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival this week and will be released on YouTube in four episodes from March 23 onwards. After the night of her overdose, which came after six years of sobriety, Lovato suffered three strokes, a heart attack and organ failure. Additionally, the singer had pneumonia from asphyxiating on her vomit, she received brain damage from the strokes and has lasting vision problems. She can no longer drive and described the lingering effects as resembling sunspots. What's more, is that Lovato was also a victim of sexual assault that night by the drug dealer who brought her heroin.
"I didn't just overdose. I was taken advantage of," she noted in the documentary. Sarah Mitchell, a friend of Lovato's shared that the singer had been given heroin "laced with fentanyl." She explained, "He also ended up getting her really high and leaving her for dead."
Lovato said, "When they found me, I was naked, blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me. When I woke up in the hospital, they asked if we had had consensual sex. There was one flash that I had of him on top of me. I saw that flash and I said yes. It wasn't until a month after the overdose that I realized, 'You weren't in any state of mind to make a consensual decision.'"
Lovato was abused as a teenager
Lovato also recounted the previous sexual abuse she received in her youth: "When I was a teenager, I was in a very similar situation. I lost my virginity in a rape." Although she acknowledged that she and her alleged attacker had been "hooking up" at the time, she noted that she had made it clear she wasn't "ready" to lose her virginity.
"I was part of that Disney crowd that publicly said they were waiting until marriage. I didn't have the romantic first time. That was not it for me — that sucked. Then I had to see this person all the time so I stopped eating and coped in other ways." She continued, "f*** it, I'm gonna say it," and said that she shared the incident to adults, but her alleged attacker "never got in trouble for it."
"They never got taken out of the movie they were in. I always kept it quiet because I've always had something to say. I don't know, I'm tired of opening my mouth. Here's the tea," she said.
What is Lovato up to now?
During the lockdown, Lovato was still recovering from her overdose. In early 2020, Lovato still showed dedication to her work when she surprised fans with stunning performances at the Grammys and the Super Bowl. She also had a new team led by her manager Scooter Braun, but returning to the spotlight as a pop superstar had her friends concerned. "I saw that she was scared, like, no one’s going to take me on,” Braun said of their initial meeting in an interview. "I asked Ariana’s opinion and she said, let me go to coffee with her,” he noted. "And by the time she got home, she texted me: You have to take her on, this is my friend. I want to know she’s safe."
During her recovery, Lovato has still devoted herself to activism, meditation, reading, and still dropped several singles. "This last year provided me so much self-growth and was so beneficial to my spiritual evolution,” the singer said. Braun has expressed the one goal he has for her moving forward: "To live a happy life."