Demi Lovato says she was raped as a teenager

Demi Lovato
Matt Sayles/Invision/AP

Demi Lovato has told how she was raped as a teenager by someone she knew.

The singer said she was assaulted in the late 2000s while working for the Disney Channel and that the offender faced no repercussions when she revealed what happened.

Lovato made the comments in her YouTube docuseries Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, which premiered on Tuesday.

Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil | Official Trailer
YouTube Originals

The 28-year-old singer said she was “left for dead” by her drug dealer after he raped her during the overdose.

She then referred to another assault that happened when she was a teenager.

“I lost my virginity in a rape,” she said. “We were hooking up but I said, ‘Hey, this is not going any further. I’m a virgin and I don’t want to lose it this way.

“And that didn’t matter to them – they did it anyways.”

Lovato did not name her attacker but said she “had to see this person all time” after the assault.

She added that she reported the attacker but “they never got in trouble for it – they never got taken out of the movie they were in”.

Lovato said she wanted to “set the record straight” with the documentary, which features a friend telling the camera “she should be dead”.

She added: “I’ve had a lot of lives, like a cat. I’m on my ninth life.”

Lovato said the rape and pressure to maintain an image of purity contributed to her struggles with bulimia and self-harm at the time.

“The Christian, southern girl in me didn’t see it that way because sex was not normalised as a child or in the south,” she said.

“And, you know what, f*** it, I’m just gonna say it: my #MeToo story is me telling somebody that someone did this to me, and they never got in trouble for it. They never got taken out of the movie they were in.”

Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil | Official Trailer
Dancing With The Devil
YouTube Originals

The four-part documentary series Dancing With The Devil is directed by Michael D Ratner and promises to give fans “unprecedented access” to Lovato’s recovery and career since the overdose in July 2018.

The singer, whose hits include Sorry Not Sorry and Heart Attack, previously described her near death experience as her “miracle day”.

This is the third documentary featuring Lovato.

The 2012 film Stay Strong explored her recovery after she cancelled a tour with the Jonas Brothers to enter rehab.

In 2017’s Simply Complicated, Lovato admitted she had been dishonest in Stay Strong and had been under the influence of cocaine during the making of the film.

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