Former Disney star Demi Lovato became news late last year when she reportedly had a “breakdown” of sorts, and was whisked away for treatment with characteristic quiet from the Mouse House.
For adult females (especially those of us with kids) it’s almost painful to watch Disney stars at this crucial age as they struggle with the brand’s chaste moral code and the impulse to do normal college-girl things, like date and get tattoos . Lovato was just a few steps behind Miley Cyrus with her hit show, the popular Sunny With a Chance , and it seemed she had cracked a bit under the pressure to be a Disney property and not just an average teen girl. Rumors swirled that she’d taken her breakup with Joe Jonas roughly (something all teen girls experience at least once) but was forced to tour with him anyway, even as he’d taken on a new girlfriend- Twilight star Ashley Greene.
Now Lovato has opened up about the pressures that took her out of the public eye at the height of her Disney fame. And instead of going back to the same grind, she has instead decided to talk about what had caused her stress in the first place- in the hopes she can serve as a role model for teens struggling with the same issues.
In an interview with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, Lovato says:
“One of the reasons why I became so outspoken when I decided to come out of treatment and talk about my issues was because when I grew up I was dealing with the pressures to be thin. It was the time in the tabloids when very, very skinny girls were on the cover of every magazine and that’s what I was looking up to. That’s what I had to idolize. I don¹t want that for young girls to idolize.”
Lovato continues:
“It’s very unhealthy… There was nobody out there for me to look at and say, maybe this is unhealthy. Maybe starving myself isn’t the answer. So I want to be that for a 13-year-old girl at home deciding whether or not to eat dinner, or an 18-year-old deciding whether or not to keep her breakfast down. There needs to be a role model out there, and for the first time in my life, I actually feel like one.”
Demi says that while the breakdown was hard , she credits it with taking her to the healthier place she’s in today. Hopefully she’ll be back to work soon to bring her message to young fans.