Demi Lovato’s New Doc “Dancing with the Devil” Will Break Your Heart

In May of 2007, I went to the Highline Ballroom in New York City to see an up-and-coming singer called Amy Winehouse. It was nearly summer and her breakout single “Rehab” was already everywhere; you couldn’t get away from it. Even through the blitz of her debut record’s success, the legend surrounding her drug and alcohol problem was already beginning to overshadow her talent. It was obvious she was going to be huge. My lingering memory of the show is that the songs were incredible, the Dap-Kings (her backing band, on loan from Sharon Jones) were amazing, but Amy seemed off her game. What stuck with me the most was how loud the crowd cheered — not after Amy finished a song, but whenever she took a big gulp from a tall glass of something brown on stage. Everyone in that room (including myself) was complicit. We were already creating the monster that would eventually kill her.

Demi Lovato‘s Dancing with the Devil premiered on March 23 on YouTube, featuring the first two episodes of what will ultimately be a four-part series. Initially, a film crew had been covering Lovato’s summer 2018 tour, but the project was scrapped when she suffered a nearly-fatal overdose in late July. The footage that would become Dancing with the Devil was shot in spring of 2020. Scenes from the original project are spliced in, which has an unsettling effect when the viewer is aware of what’s to come. Instead of showcasing the strange isolation of a major arena tour, the adoration of her fans, Demi’s admirable work ethic and commitment to sobriety (which appear to be the basis of the original project), this new film thus far focuses almost entirely on the overdose.

This is an unusual PR strategy for a pop star, and it’s an emotional watch. Traditionally, pop stars (especially former Disney pop stars) are supposed to be squeaky clean, virginal, safe. The kind of intensely dark topics Dancing with the Devil covers — eating disorders, mental health struggles, sexual assault, addiction and even death — are rarely part of the package. Our culture often romanticizes certain kinds of celebrities who grapple with addiction (particularly those who die young), but  grotesquely eviscerates others. Britney Spears is a solid example; while she was very obviously dealing with a major mental health crisis, she became a laughingstock and the subject of dozens of terrible late-night TV hosts’ cruel monologues. It’s only recently that the Free Britney movement has led the public to reconsider Spears with some degree of compassion. Demi Lovato has not shied away from any of her demons, and this approach has made her a much more candid and complex artist than many of peers.

This is the third personal documentary Demi Lovato has released. Both 2012’s Stay Strong and 2017’s Simply Complicated also focused on Lovato’s mental health and history of substance abuse. The fact that she’s still candidly discussing her ongoing issues is significant, because this story cannot be neatly packaged. By naming these things, she also normalizes them. In Demi Lovato’s Dancing with the Devil, when given the opportunity to gloss over certain grim details about her own drug use, she is instead brutally honest. She is candid about both of her parents’ previous substance abuse issues and her father’s fatal overdose, and at no point is her own addiction glamorized. For young fans, seeing Lovato’s intertwined and ongoing struggles presented so bluntly is remarkable.

Demi’s position as a role model is mostly presented as something that’s been difficult to grapple with in the wake of everything else. In one clip from the 2018 film, DJ Khaled congratulates her on six years of sobriety on stage in front of thousands of cheering fans as she smiles bashfully (in the next screen, we learn that Lovato was already off the wagon and would overdose just a month later). In another scene, two young girls are absolutely teary-eyed while gushing about Demi means to them; their makeup is done exactly like hers. Later, Lovato explains that in an attempt to loosen her own dietary restrictions, she gained weight and has begun to feel uncomfortable in her stage outfits. She points to the sketches the designers have created, noting that even the model wearing the outfit in the sketch is impossibly tall and thin. Even while traveling with a sober companion, a psychologist, a nutritionist and a dietician in tow, she still found herself falling back into disordered eating, and eventually substance abuse. Friends describe how trapped Lovato had begun to feel, even while being monitored closely by people who seem to genuinely care about her and her wellbeing.

In the early morning of July 24, Demi overdosed on oxycodone that had been laced with fentanyl. While she was fading out, her drug dealer sexually assaulted her. She miraculously emerged on the other side, having suffered three strokes, a heart attack, multiple organ failures, pneumonia and temporary blindness. Doctors told her that if she had been found just five to ten minutes later than she was, she’d be dead. She still has blind spots in her line of vision and can no longer drive. This information is all presented very matter-of-factly; in fact Lovato makes it a point to stress that she doesn’t believe the public are actually aware of just how dire the situation had been. A friend wanly jokes that on Demi’s most recent birthday, he morbidly congratulated her on turning 28 and thereby avoiding the “27 Club,” a title reserved for celebrities who died at the age of 27. The list includes Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and yes, Amy Winehouse. Lovato’s doctor also pipes up, explaining exactly how rare it is for a patient who suffered an overdose with such extensive organ failure to walk out of the hospital at all.

Demi Lovato does not have to tell this story, but it’s important that she does.

Demi Lovato’s Dancing with the Devil episodes 3 & 4 will premiere on YouTube on March 30, 2021.

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Stef

Stef Schwartz is a founding member and the self-appointed Vapid Fluff Editor at Autostraddle.com. She currently resides in New York City, where she spends her days writing songs nobody will ever hear and her nights telling much more successful musicians what to do. Follow her on twitter and/or instagram.

Stef has written 464 articles for us.

5 Comments

  1. I heard about Demi’s overdose just a few days after watching the Whitney documentary that came out in 2018. I compare them in part because that documentary seemed so committed to assigning Whitney Houston’s drug use to her family, when it is so clear that the Entertainment industry does an enormous amount of damage to young people growing up in this world.

  2. The first two episodes of this have kind of wrecked me. I’m the same age as demi, grew up and came out while watching her on Disney and listening to her music,which helped me in a big way. The sheer honesty in this series so far makes it hard to watch at times

  3. Addiction almost always is based in trauma, especially with women. I abuse alcohol and have drugs as well throughout the years. Anything I could get my hands on. Speculating here from my own experience. I was sexually abused from the age of 5. I have been through multiple Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Counselors over 30 some years. All of them failing to address the actual problem, only wanting to address the alcohol issues. Also suffering multiple family deaths, basically all of my family has passed away. What do you care about when you have nothing to care about? Whatever drink or drug can help you cope or sleep, get through the next day because not one damn person including every mental health professional has failed to fully address or understand the problem. I love Demi and hope she gets through it. However she still is not sober and most likely in time something else will happen again that will trigger her. The sexual assault she suffered will only exacerbate an already very bad situation and fester. She also stated she had been raped previously when she was I think 18. I do not know what she needs. If I was her and had the resources she does I would disappear to another country away from the paparazzi,maybe for good.

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