It’s been a tumultuous six months in the life of Demi Lovato.
After suffering an overdose that nearly ended her life back in July, Demi spent 90 days in rehab and emerged with a new newly restored commitment to her sobriety, her family, and her fans.
Lovato eagerly returned to social media within days of re-entering the world, but as she was reminded Sunday night, sobriety doesn’t solve all of your problems, and the Twitter-sphere can be an unforgiving place.
As you may have heard, 21 Savage was apprehended by ICE over the weekend.
The agency claims the rapper — who was apparently born in the UK — has been living in the US on an expired visa.
And since he was convicted on drug charges back in 2014, Savage is reportedly being recommended for deportation.
As Savage’s lawyers began fighting against his removal from the US, Twitter proved it’s the real savage with a barrage of memes reacting to the surprising news that the rapper is British.
Most were good-natured jabs that mined as many laughs from American stereotypes about Brits as from Savage’s surprising citizenship.
And what does all of this have to do with Demi?
Well, the situation earned her a painful reminder that the rules of engagement for international celebrities are quite different than they are for anonymous alt accounts with anime avatars.
"So far 21 Savage memes have been my favorite part of the Super Bowl," Demi tweeted on Sunday.
The backlash was swift and harsh, with many reminding Demi that she likely wouldn’t have appreciated that kind of A-list shade during the lowest point of her own recent struggles.
Demi’s critics included rapper Wale, who was quick to point out Lovato’s hypocrisy.
"A lot of people were sending you love light, prayers etc. When people were making jokes about u at a rough time. A lot of people. Bless up," he tweeted.
For reasons that defy explanation, Demi refused to apologize, and instead went on the offensive.
"Wale just salty I never replied to his salty tweet years ago," Lovato clapped back.
Wale kept it respectful, but some of the folks who went after Demi decidedly did not.
"Go shoot some more heroin Demi," "she’s a crackhead," "LOL who overdosed don’t @ me," "shut up Demi go do more heroin," tweeted some of Demi’s harshest critics.
"F–k Demi Lovato n—a #21," tweeted Lil Yachty.
"Demi Lovato started off laughing at someone else’s situation then turned herself into a victim. This is peak white woman," wrote one user.
Yet again, Demi angrily clapped back at the criticism, tweeting:
"F-ck twitter, this is why I don’t tweet," before deactivating her account.
Later, she was far more conciliatory on Instagram:
"Sorry if I offended anyone," Demi wrote.
"But it’s no excuse to laugh at someone’s addiction let alone their OD.
"Wasn’t laughing at anyone getting deported," she wrote. "I know that’s not a joke… not have I EVER laughed at that."
We get that Demi was laughing at the memes about Savage being British, not at the fact that he was deported.
Still, we expect greater empathy from someone who recently endured a difficult time of her own — and who notoriously does not have a sense of humor about her own struggles.
It’s a complex situation, to be sure.
But it’s important to remember that if Demi’s only punishment from here is remaining off Twitter, then she may have just stumbled onto a blessing in disguise.
