DEMI Lovato opened up about her rehab stints and eating disorder during a virtual reunion with her Sonny With A Chance co-stars.
The 27-year-old singer, who left the Disney sitcom aged 18 to go to a treatment facility, caught up with her old pals during a Zoom chat on Saturday.
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Demi quit her own show in 2010, while the rest of the cast stayed on for season three, re-branding as So Random!
The singer, who starred as Sonny Munroe on the show, joked at the start of the chat: “I went to rehab. Several times!”
She went on: “When I left, you don’t expect your show to go on without you, but it did.
“But I couldn’t have been happier for everybody…I just wasn’t in a period of time when I was ready to be on camera again. I could not go back into that environment and there were other things that factored into it.”
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The star was diagnosed with bipolar disorder being treated in Illinois for a nervous breakdown, bulimia, self-harm, and struggles with alcohol and cocaine.
After rehab, she moved into a sober-living facility in Los Angeles for over a year, and stayed clean until her 2018 relapse and alleged opioid overdose.
The Sorry Not Sorry singer revealed she was “inspired” by her co-star Tiffany Thorton – whose Arkansas wedding she attended as a bridesmaid.
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Demi said: “When I went away to treatment for the first time, you were my biggest inspiration coming out of it because you dealt with all of those pressures of being a woman on TV.
“I looked at that as, ‘I wish I had that so bad.’ Yes, I probably was happier in my head with whatever I looked like at the time. But, I’m so much happier now with the mentality that you have. I look back now and I’m like, man, it’s a shame that we wasted any energy on what we wore on set.”
She went on: “I’m realizing that as I’ve gotten older because when I was young, when you start off in the industry as a seven-year-old, eight-year-old, you kind of value your self-worth with your success. I have moments all the time where I’m like, ‘Do I want to continue this? Or do I want to pull a Tiffany and move to Texas, have a family and have a farm?'”
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Tiffany, 34 – who played Demi’s onscreen enemy Tawni Hart – is mother to sons Kenneth, seven, and Bentley, six, from her first marriage to Chris Carney, who tragically died in a car accident.
She also has a 17-month-old daughter Juliet with second husband, pastor Josiah Capaci.
Demi – who is dating actor Max Ehrich – also talked about her eating disorder while recalling how she’d be “covered in a blanket” in her dressing room, was always 98F degrees.
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The Stone Cold singer said: “I would have people over for meetings on my lunch breaks, because that’s how much I worked.
“People would come in and I’d be covered in a blanket on the couch and people would say, ‘Why is it 80 degrees in here?’
“I would be like, ‘Because I’m freezing.’ They would be like, ‘Oh my god, what’s wrong with you?’ I had an eating disorder and I was underweight and freezing!”
The New Mexico-born actress has been open about her eating disorder in the past, revealing the bulimia began when she was eight and is still “constantly” in the back of her mind.
Demi was also joined by Allisyn Ashley Arm, Doug Brochu, Sterling Knight, Audrey Whitby, Matthew Scott Montgomery, Shayne Topp and Damien Haas in the Sonny With A Chance reunion.
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