It’s a little hard to remember at this point, but there was a time when Demi Lovato was forging a path for herself as an actress first, starting on Barney as a young child and working her way up to Sonny with a Chance. Eventually, Lovato’s musical career seemed to take precedence over her acting gigs, but the singer recently revealed it was actually her eating disorder that kept her away from acting.
In a new tell-all interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Demi Lovato opened up about her past troubles with drugs, alcohol and food. However, she will be returning to the screen this year in a new Netflix movie also set to star Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams and she credits her return to acting after a hiatus on worrying less about her weight. She said:
My eating disorder kept me from going back to acting for years. But I finally came to a place with my body where I thought, ‘Why am I going to let this stop me when it’s just my shell? I’ve stopped letting my weight control my life.
The new Netflix comedy is called Eurovision, and will follow Demi Lovato as Katiana, an Icelandic singer who is part of the competition in the fictionalized version of the popular singing contest. Lovato also recently appeared on Will & Grace as part of that comedy’s revival.
The two roles were her first major onscreen gigs since she appeared as a judge on The X Factor and on Glee back in 2013. Although it is worth pointing out she made appearances in From Dusk Till Dawn, Zoolander 2, and Smurfs: The Lost Village in the interim.
By now, it’s common knowledge that in 2018, Demi Lovato completed rehab after an overdose on oxycodone laced with fentanyl at her home in Hollywood Hills in July of 2018. Lovato has been open about her past issues with substance abuse and eating disorders prior to her overdose, but posts over the past year on her social media have been more about accepting herself for who she is.
Now, she’s once again come out on the other side of her struggles, although she still reflects on what it’s like to be famous and what toll that can take on your personal and mental health.
I’m grateful for the opportunities that I got. Do I wish that I’d had more downtime? Yes. I think when you are a teenager and you’re given your big break, you’ll do anything to make it happen. I do feel that a lot of the way some of my life was handled and lived led to me kind of having a bit of a downfall, just because I was so overworked and I wasn’t dedicating enough time to my mental health or my personal life.
Hopefully, with her new move back into acting, Demi Lovato will be able to find the right level of work-life balance. Yet, given she also sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl –a personal dream for the singer -- this past year and also has released a couple of singles already in 2020, she’s certainly not a celebrity to sit still.
I can't wait to see what she does next, but for now we can look forward to Eurovision on Netflix, which is expected later in 2020.
