Demi Lovato is a talented singer who has endured some dark times.
From her overdose recovery to her disastrous engagement, she is now in a better place in her life.
Demi is embracing her queer identity and acknowledging that she may never date another cisgender man.
She also opens up about how her personal journey as a recovering addict isn’t one of absolute sobriety.
"When I started getting older, I started realizing how queer I really am," Demi Lovato expressed to Glamour.
This is a common experience within the LGBTQ+ community.
An aggressively heteronormative society gives few people a chance to examine their identities, particularly when they’re young.
"This past year, I was engaged to a man," Demi stated, referring to her ill-fated romance with Max Ehrich.
"And when it didn’t work," she reflected, "I was like, ‘This is a huge sign.’"
"I thought I was going to spend my life with someone," Demi expressed.
"Now that I wasn’t going to," Demi continued, "I felt this sense of relief that I could live my truth."
"I hooked up with a girl," she added.
"And," Demi appraised, she "was like, ‘I like this a lot more.’"
"It felt better. It felt right,” Demi affirmed.
Many in the LGBTQ+ community have parthers who are cisgender and heterosexual.
However, Demi expressed that she is "too queer" to be involved with a cisgender man.
“Some of the guys I was hanging out with," Demi recalled.
"When it would come time to be sexual or intimate," she said, "I would have this kind of visceral reaction."
Demi explained: "Like, ‘I just don’t want to put my mouth there.’"
"It wasn’t even based on the person it was with," Demi clarified.
"I just found myself really appreciating the friendships of those people more than the romance," she explained.
"And," Demi added, "I didn’t want the romance from anybody of the opposite sex."
"I know who I am and what I am," Demi stated.
That doesn’t mean that she’s rushing to publicly label herself beyond the queer umbrella term.
Demi added: "I’m just waiting until a specific timeline to come out to the world as what I am."
“I’m following my healers’ timeline," Demi noted.
"aAnd I’m using this time to really study and educate myself on my journey," she shared.
"And," Demi continued, "what I’m preparing to do.”
Demi has recently unveiled her magenta pixie cut to the world.
She explained that this was a symbol of her brushing off the expectations of our aggressively heteronormative society.
Ultimately, Demi predicts, she may simply shave her head, having learned to love short hair.
Demi will be sharing much more in her new YouTube documentary, Dancing With The Devil.
While much of it will cover her addiction crisis, overdose, and recovery, she will also delve into her ill-fated engagement.
Demi shared that the doc will cover how she was left questioning if she will ever feel comfortable opening up to another person.
Demi admitted that she “denied my intuition of all the red flags that had popped up."
Unfortunately, this led her to believe that she had “no one else to blame but myself.”
“So I was like, ‘How am I ever going to trust again?’" Demi explained.
"But really, I was like, ‘Bitch, you should have trusted yourself," Demi affirmed.
"If you had trusted yourself," she remarked, "you wouldn’t have ended up in this position."
Ignoring red flags seldom ends well.
Since then, Demi has embraced her true self.
She does feel ready to give love another chance.
But not with Max.
”I’m very much listening to my intuition," Demi affirmed.
"And that’s not to say my boundaries or my guard is up," she clarified.
Demi explained: "It’s just saying my ears are perked a little higher, and my eyes are open a little wider.”
Additionally, Demi shared that she is drinking and smoking pot in small amounts.
This, she says, is the balance that works for her — and she is certainly not alone.
Painting all addicts with the same brush will inevitably fail many of them. We’re glad that Demi has a system that is right for her.
Additionally, we should note that though queer is an umbrella term for the broader LGBTQ+ community, it is also an individual label.
Sexuality and gender are both incredibly complicated topics that, as Demi demonstrated in her interview, can be difficult to discuss clearly.
The thoroughly reclaimed slur has a complicated history, but can be a comfortable (and very intersectional) label for many — including Demi.