Talking to Fabolous Magazine Actress and Singer Demi Lovato said "I felt uncomfortable today. Knowing I have bad angles and the photographer can take a bad shot makes me insecure. But I'm a lot better than I used to be. In my first shoot after having treatment, I went into meltdown and ran away from the studio. So I've made progress."By 15 she was a pop star, billed as Disney's successor to Miley Cyrus' teen-queen crown. Bulimia, which she'd suffered from since the age of 12, ravaged her body, and then there was the drink, reported cocaine abuse, depression and self-harm.. After punching a backing dancer on a plane during a tour, Demi was admitted to rehab for three months. There followed a further six months when she was so disillusioned by the industry, she considered quitting.
"I'm not saying I'm perfect, or fixed, but I am learning to love and accept myself. My outlook is more positive and I am happy."Surrounded by a security guard and half a dozen Topshop bags from a whirlwind shopping splurge, Albuquerque-born Demi is cautious but candid, and refreshingly free of the psycho-babble you would expect from a celeb who has spent three months in rehab.Any scars from her self-harming are hidden by tattoos on her wrists, which say "Stay" and "Strong" - a tribute to her fans for supporting her. Demi hit screens in 2005, playing Angela in children's series Barney & Friends. At 14, she landed roles in Disney film Camp Rock and television show Sonny With A Chance.
She was part of an exclusive group of teen actors, including the Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus, who, like Britney and Christina before them, had the good looks and squeaky-clean personalities required by the Disney machine. But as stardom beckoned, so did bullies at her school in Dallas, Texas."They told me I was fat and ugly. I shouldn't have listened, but I took it to heart and it hurt. I thought maybe I didn't have friends because I was too fat."So she starved herself, and anything she did eat, she threw up again. Within six months she had lost over 2st and weighed 6st 4lb - unhealthy for her 5ft 2in height.
"I'd make myself sick up to six times a day. My mum was worried, but because I was going through puberty I was having growth spurts so she assumed that was why I was thinner."
When skinniness didn't provide her with the friends or happiness she yearned for, Demi sought solace in drugs. It was reported that she was snorting cocaine, but Demi, aware of the influence on her young fan base, is reluctant to go into detail.
When the drugs didn't block out her pain, she cut herself. "It started with my wrists. People saw that, so I cut in places they couldn't see," she says."You do it because you feel so bad inside. You don't know how to take it out other than on yourself." Demi - whose mother Dianna, a former cheerleader, divorced her father Patrick when Demi was just two - felt unable to confide in her parents."I'd just get scolded if they found out," she says. "They were worried, but I knew they wouldn't understand. I had a hard time opening up to friends. People were there for me but I didn't utilise them. Do I wish I had? Yes."
Instead, she threw herself into her work. Demi's first album, Don't Forget, was released in 2008. The following year she starred in the Disney film, Princess Protection Program, and released her second album, Here We Go Again. It shot to No.1 in the US charts."I went from movie to album to touring to television and back," she says. "Being in the limelight wasn't the root of my problems, but it didn't help. I never took more than two weeks off in four years and it caught up with me."Demi's single Give Your Heart A Break is out May 14. Her album Unbroken is out now.
