Recently, it came out that Demi Lovato got assaulted by her dealer in a night of dubious consent back in 2018 when she overdosed. But what she has never disclosed before, is that this was not the first time that it happened.
She said growing up as a good, Christian, Southern girl that sex was not normalized. (Growing up in the same culture, I can relate.) She was one of the many young disney stars who proclaimed to be waiting for marriage, even had what she called a ‘promise ring’ but what we know as a ‘purity ring’. (Remember the Jonas Brothers’ whole purity ring phase? Yeah that was a time, wasn’t it?)
Demi Lovato talks about her sexual assault
Demi says that when she was 15, a few months after she initially rocketed to stardom on the Disney Channel, she may have been wearing the purity ring but it was in name only. She would not name her assailant, just said that in the moment she realized that she did not want to lose her virginity in that way – but the person in question didn’t care and ‘did it anyway’.
She said her “me too” story consisted of her speaking up about the abuse, and the guy literally getting away with it. Her exact words were, “No one removed him from the movie they were working on.”, now, this is just speculation but it begs the question if Demi wasn’t the only one just wearing a purity ring in name only around that time. Ahem.
Demi doesn’t name names, but she said it was because before when it happened that she had basically been shut down and she was tired of opening her mouth. She was tired of being ignored, so, like many young women, she simply sucked it up and attempted to move on with her life.
She said that in order to take back control of the situation she even contacted the person in question a month later, I guess in an attempt to normalize what happened by claiming that they were ‘dating’ or something (not the first girl to have ever done that) but she said that it didn’t end well for her and damaged her psyche even more.
It’s sad that in 2021 we are still having to have conversations about what is and is not consent. This should be taught early, teaching people about their own body autonomy and what is and isn’t okay should be normalized. It definitely starts at home, and should be reinforced everywhere.
In the Christian South, we have a very ‘boys will be boys’ mentality about this, so I get exactly what led Demi to handle it like she did, but the fact of the matter is, she got damaged by this. It should have never happened, because no should always mean no. End of story.
Her next installment looks a lot more light-hearted, about quarantining with the guy that she would become engaged to, but we’ll see just how that goes. Stay tuned!!!
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