August 20 - Demi Lovato

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On this day, in 1992, Demetria Devonne Lovato was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As the daughter of a musician and a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, Demi was pre-destined to a life of performing.  What wasn’t so easy to see were the obstacles she would have to overcome getting to that life, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Demi’s parents divorced when she was barely two and she moved with her mother to Dallas, Texas. She began taking piano lessons at the age of seven and added the guitar three years later. With acting and dancing classes on top of her musical lessons, it’s a wonder how she managed to fit in regular appearances as Angela on seasons seven and eight of Barney and Friends (which filmed in the Dallas area) as well as school. And that’s where we hit a major bump in the highway of Demi’s life. During an interview with Ellen Degeneres, she revealed that she was the victim of relentless bullying at school. It got so bad she begged her mother to be homeschooled. Her mother granted that wish and not only was she able to fit her educational schedule around all her other activities, but she was able to graduate from high school a year early.

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While still in school, Demi began to branch out from her beginnings with the purple dinosaur. She made appearances on the Fox drama Prison Break and the Nickelodeon show Just Jordan. This exposure led to her first starring role in a series as Charlotte Adams in the Disney Channel show As the Bell Rings. Bell was what is known as an interstitial program meaning it was only a few minutes long and played in the spaces between other shows and movies on the network. For Demi, it was her ticket to bigger and better things.

In 2007, Demi auditioned for and got starring roles in two major projects on the Disney Channel. The first one was as Mitchie Torres, an aspiring singer, in the teen movie Camp Rock. While Camp Rock debuted in 2008 with more viewers than its genre busting predecessor, High School Musical, it never reached the same frenetic heights of popularity. Not that that really mattered to Demi. She sang four of songs on the film’s soundtrack, including her debut single This Is Me, which would peak at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. This Is Me led to a contract with Hollywood Records and her debut album, Don’t Forget, which hit the charts at number two in September of that year and had three tracks that charted as well.

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The following year, as she was graduating from high school early, Demi starred in her own show, Sonny with a Chance, also on the Disney Channel. 2009-2010 would turn out to be an incredibly busy two years for the young star, in ways both good and bad. She recorded a charity single, Send It On, with several other DC stars, proceeds going to environmental causes. In June 2009, she starred in another DC movie, Princess Protection Program, with Selena Gomez. In July, she released her second album, Here We Go Again, which debuted in Billboard’s number one slot and jump started a 40 city tour during July and August. In 2010, Demi and Joe Jonas recorded a second single, Make a Wave, for Disney’s Friends for Change charity. That fall, Camp Rock 2 debuted with Demi reprising her roll of Mitchie Torres. The new soundtrack debuted at number 3 and prompted the cast of Camp Rock 2 to join the Jonas Brothers on their tour. Then, at the end of October 2010, everything abruptly fell apart.

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While Demi would later explain everything that had been going on, it seemed to her fans that she was there one moment and vanished the next. She walked away from the Jonas Brothers tour, quit not only Sonny with a Chance but acting altogether and checked herself into a treatment facility for physical and mental reasons. After emerging from treatment nearly three months later, Demi slowly began to share the list of reasons that led to her self-imposed exile. That list is almost dizzying and yet all too common at the same time. Still suffering from effects of the intense bullying she endured when she was younger, Demi added more and more problems to her plate, fueled by her newfound fame and fortune, until she could no longer hold that plate, much less keep it spinning. She began to suffer from bulimia and depression (not necessarily in that order), both of which caused her to harm herself in other ways. In order to dull the increasing pain she felt, she began to drink and eventually became addicted to cocaine. She was spiraling towards a complete nervous breakdown when she physically assaulted a female dancer with the tour. Her manager and family staged an intervention at that point and convinced her to seek help. To top everything off, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during her treatment.

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2011 became a rebuilding year for Demi. She was released from treatment in January. By April, she’d become a contributor to Seventeen magazine writing articles about her experiences.  In September, she released her third album, Unbroken, which went gold and had two singles, Skyscraper and Give Your Heart a Break, go platinum. In May 2012, Demi joined the judges panel of The X Factor and things seemed to be looking up for the young star. She’d even made a documentary of her struggles for MTV called Demi Lovato: Stay Strong. Unfortunately, she wasn’t staying as strong as everyone thought.

When Demi released her fourth album, Demi, in 2013, she revealed that she had been living in a sobriety house for more than a year. And that she’d actually been high when she was filmed for the documentary about her recovery. This time, though, she really did seem to be sticking to her plan to be better to herself. In addition to the new album, she released an e-book, also title Demi. She appeared in several episodes of the fifth season of Glee. She released a self-help book, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year, that shot to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. She sang a version of Let it Go for the end credits of Frozen that spent twenty weeks on the charts. And she went on tour again, once in North America and again on her first world tour.

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Over the next few years, Demi released two more albums, Confident and Tell Me You Love Me, both of which went gold with singles that went platinum (a trend she’s managed to keep up with every release). In 2017, she returned to acting as the voice of Smurfette in Smurfs: The Lost Village and, the following year, appeared as Lenore in the animated movie Charming. She’s also made numerous appearances on reality competition shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Bachelorette, as either a guest judge or a performer. And on March 15, 2018, she celebrated being sober for six years. Except she then revealed that she’d only been mostly sober and had experienced some mighty struggles with her addictions. And then in June, just days after she admitted she’d had a relapse, Demi was rushed to the hospital, this time for an opioid overdose.

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Demi is currently on the mend once again. She’s endured more treatment, made new life plans and continues to battle her demons in a pretty public way. It’s no surprise that among the many causes to which she lends both her financial support and celebrity power, there are several that aim to combat bullying, raise awareness of mental health issues, empower women and advocate for the LGBTQ community and others who feel marginalized in society. She announced this last May that she’d signed up with a new manager and looks forward to the next chapter in her life. At least one project in that chapter has already been completed, with another gearing up. You’ll be able to see her in a Netflix original comedy, Eurovision, sometime next year with Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams. She will also be appearing in several episodes of the next season of Will and Grace. What else will this talented if embattled young woman unleash on the world? No one knows but Demi, but if she continues to move forward with the authenticity and determination she’s shown so far, there is more than a chance her future will be sunny.