Demi Lovato is getting candid about her near-fatal overdose in an emotional new interview with Zane Lowe.
Just four days before she was hospitalized, Lovato recorded the vocals for a new song, “Anyone.” She says, in hindsight, the lyrics reveal just how much she was struggling. “At the time when I was recording it, I almost listened back and hear these lyrics as a cry for help,” she said. “You kind of listen back to it and you kind of think, how did nobody listen to this song and think, ‘Let’s help this girl’?”
She admits she was “in denial” as she worked on the song: “I even think that I was recording it in a state of mind where I felt like I was okay, but clearly I wasn’t. I even listened back to it and I’m like, ‘Gosh, I wish I could go back in time and help that version of myself.’”
A year and a half later, she’s getting the chance to perform the song for the first time at the Grammys. Lovato says the idea of looking towards the future helped her as she struggled after her overdose. “It was about a week after I had been in the hospital and I was finally, like, awake, and I just remember hearing back the songs I had just recorded and thinking, ‘If there’s ever a moment where I get to come back from this, I want to sing this song.’”
Lovato doesn’t just have her Grammy performance on the horizon—she’ll also be performing the National Anthem at Super Bowl LIV in Miami this February. While these moments are exciting, Lovato also admits she needs to take “precautions” to prevent a crash after the adrenaline fades. “It’s important to plan ahead so… after the Grammys, I’m not sitting there like twiddling my thumbs like, ‘Okay, what am I doing with my life now? Where do I get this from? How can I beat that high?’ Just be prepared.”
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I told you the next time you’d hear from me I’d be singing 😇😝#GRAMMYs @recordingacademy @cbstv
As for the future, Lovato says she’s thinking less about awards and record sales, and more about “soul connections” with loved ones. “I would love to start doing more things that make me happy and worry less about success…All of that stuff is great, and if you can accomplish that, that’s awesome. But I just know personally it doesn’t fill that hole inside of me that only love and appreciation and gratitude can fill.”
Still, the star is “really excited” for the world to hear her new music. “It’s going to be a big year, and I feel the momentum. I feel the excitement and I’m ready for it.”