In the upcoming YouTube docuseries “Dancing With Devil,” pop star and former Disney star Demi Lovato opens up about being sexually assaulted at 15-years-old during the time she was acting on the Disney channel. The new documentary premiered on Tuesday night at the SXSW Film Festival.
During the documentary Lovato reflects on the past trauma she has experienced in her life, reflecting back to her first time being sexually assaulted. Lovato provides details of her alleged raped, explaining that the tragic encounter began as a consensual hookup but turned into a traumatic event. At the time this occurred Lovato was also the leading star in the Disney film “Camp Rock” and Disney sitcom “Sonny With A Chance.”
“I lost my virginity in a rape,” said in the documentary. “We were hooking up but I said — hey, this is not going any farther, 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. And I internalized it and I told myself it was my fault because I still went in the room with him. I still hooked up with him,” she further elaborates.
Although she told adults about the alleged rape at the time, Lovato discloses that her alleged attacker “never got in trouble for it.”
“They never got taken out of the movie they were in. I always kept it quiet because I’ve always had something to say. I don’t know, I’m tired of opening my mouth. Here’s the tea,” she says
Lovato also recounts the traumatic night in July of 2018 that landed her in the hospital from a heroin overdose. As she recalls that fateful event she divulges that she was sexually assaulted by her drug dealer the same night she overdosed.
“When they found me, I was naked, blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me,” Demi Lovato says in the documentary. “When I woke up in the hospital, they asked if we had had consensual sex. There was one flash that I had of him on top of me. I saw that flash and I said yes. It wasn’t until a month after the overdose that I realized, ‘You weren’t in any state of mind to make a consensual decision.”
Sira Mitchell, Lovato’s friend, explains that Lovato’s drug dealer gave her heroin “laced with fentanyl” that night. “He also ended up getting her really high and leaving her for dead,” Mitchell says about the drug dealer in the documentary.
Demi Lovato’s documentary will premiere on YouTube March 23.