Demi Lovato is reportedly leaving the hospital this week, per TMZ, and is set to go to rehab immediately after, though it’s unclear where she will be going and under what circumstances. If Lovato does decide to go to rehab or a treatment program, then this will be her third public time getting treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.
TMZ reports that Lovato’s team have given her the ultimatum of going to rehab or “losing their numbers.”
Lovato has attended two rehab programs for drug and alcohol addictions in the last ten years, though she has also been outspoken about her struggles with bipolar disorder and an eating disorder over those years, too. In 2016, Lovato spoke to E! News about her early battles with addiction. “I lived fast and I was going to die young,” she said. “I didn’t think I would make it to 21.”
First Rehab Stint: Lovato Goes to Timberland Knolls in 2010 at Age 18
Lovato reportedly first went to rehab in 2010, at age 18. The event came after Lovato reportedly punched her backup dancer in the face, and embarked upon on a self-described “bender of two months” where she was “using daily”, according to an interview in her second documentary Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated.
Soon after her first rehab stint, Lovato released her first documentary, titled Demi Lovato: Stay Strong. In Stay Strong, Lovato said of her early fame, “I had so many issues underneath that needed to be taken care of and we kept putting bandaids on it. It literally ended up driving me insane.”
Lovato continued, “I was not eating and purging and self-harming. It was really difficult to be able to stop.”
Lovato revealed that it was her parents who proposed that she stop touring and go to rehab in 2010. “It happened like an intervention,” she said. “my parents sat me down, and they said, ‘We have a plane waiting for you, if you’re willing to go.’ And the whole time, I just kept thinking, ‘There’s nowhere else to go, there’s nothing else to do. I’ve lost everything right now, and I just have to work to get it back.'”
Lovato also revealed that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2011 and subsequently treated for it, though it’s unclear if she went to a treatment facility or not during this period.
Second Stint: Lovato Seeks Treatment & Moves Into a Sober-Living Facility in 2012
In Lovato’s recent documentary Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated, she revealed that her rehab stint in 2010 hadn’t been entirely successful, as she had relapsed with both alcohol addiction and cocaine use in the following years, even admitting that she had been using cocaine while doing interviews for her first documentary (which was focused on her recovery), Demi Lovato: Stay Strong.
In Simply Complicated, Lovato said of her relapse, “I wasn’t working my program. I wasn’t ready to get sober. I was sneaking it on planes, sneaking it in bathrooms, sneaking it throughout the night. Nobody knew.”
In an appearance on The Jonathon Ross Show, Lovato confirmed that her second stint at rehab only eventually came to fruition after she’d “hit rock bottom.” Lovato said, “The final one, everyone was like, ‘We are no longer going to leave, we are leaving.’ That was the moment when I thought, ‘Okay, I really need to get help and get sober.’ This time I knew… I had hit rock bottom and I just needed to do this for myself.”
Though it isn’t clear when, exactly, she went, Lovato confirmed on Simply Complicated that she moved into a sober-living facility in 2012 and began treatment once more for drug and alcohol addiction. Lovato was reportedly clean for six years before releasing her single ‘Sober’ earlier this summer. Her recent overdose was initially reported to be the result of heroin usage, but Lovato has consistently denied that heroin was involved, despite TMZ’s report that Lovato was revived at the scene with Narcan.
The latest reports have cited some form of methamphetamine to be the cause of the overdose, though Lovato has not confirmed or denied this.