Demi Lovato was certain she would be dead by the tender age of 21 due to extensive drug and alcohol abuse. The 23-year-old artist went into rehab in 2010 to treat such habits, along with an ongoing eating disorder and self-harming tendencies.
To this day, Lovato believes she wouldn’t be alive had she not sought professional help.
In an interview with American Way magazine, she said: “I lived fast and I was going to die young. I didn’t think I would make it to 21.”
She also revealed that Britney Spears’ mental breakdown in 2007 helped open her eyes after being convinced she was going down a similar path. “I was definitely like, ‘Oh crap. In three years, that’s going to be me.'”
Lovato is now a role-model for other women who are also struggling, although she claims to have felt uncomfortable with the responsibility at first.
“I didn’t go into treatment thinking, ‘OK, now I’m going to be an inspiration’. At times I was resentful for having that kind of responsibility, but now, it’s really become a part of my life. It holds me accountable.”
The singer essentially blames her eating disorder on a similar condition led by her mother and grandmother. “Even though I was two or three years old, being around somebody who was 80 pounds and had an active eating disorder … it’s hard not to grow up like that.”
This was an issue from an early age, as she felt self-conscious since age seven while participating in various beauty pageants. “My body-image awareness started way before that. But I do attribute a little of my insecurities to being onstage and judged for my beauty.”
She continued: “When I was gaining weight because I was becoming a woman, I would look at those images [on her bedroom wall] and say to myself, “Wait, this is not what I look like. I’m getting fat on the hips and on my butt.”‘