Demi Lovato Opened Old Wounds

A STAR IS REBORN –

Aug. 14, 2024 – “I was filled with gratitude, and there was this sense of wonder and excitement,” she recalls. “It was very much the honeymoon phase of my career, right before the train got moving in a way where I couldn’t pump the brakes.” Now, 16 years later, Lovato is seated before me in the Los Angeles home she shares with her fiancé, singer-songwriter Jordan “Jutes” Lutes, trying to make sense of everything that came next. By anyone’s measure, Lovato’s life has swung wildly between professional highs, including eight studio albums, all of which debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, and personal lows, bottoming out in 2018 with a near fatal overdose, which was accompanied by three strokes, organ failure and a heart attack. Along the way, Lovato, who got her start on Barney & Friends at age 6, amassed a following of more than 266 million on social media, with whom she’s remained radically transparent about every step of her journey, which also includes a history with both sexual assault and an eating disorder. But before Lovato can move forward once and for all, she says, “I need to figure out why I entered this industry in the first place.”

So, as she closes in on 32, Lovato’s returning to the Walt Disney Co., making her directorial debut with Child Star, a bound-to-be-buzzy documentary set for a Sept. 17 release on Hulu.