Demi Lovato: ‘I lost my virginity in a rape’

Los Angeles, March 17 (IANS): Singer-songwriter Demi Lovato, says she was “raped” when she was a teenager, and “sexually assaulted” by her drug dealer in July 2018, on the night she had a drug overdose and almost died.

“I didn’t just overdose. I was taken advantage of,” the 28-year-old says in her documentary series, “Demi Lovato: Dancing With The Devil”, which premiered at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, as reported by People magazine.

“When they found me, I was naked, blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me. 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 realised, ‘you weren’t in any state of mind to make a consensual decision’,” she added.

In the series, Lovato recounts not just the trauma of the particular night but a previous sexual assault, too.

“When I was a teenager, I was in a very similar situation. I lost my virginity in a rape. I was part of that Disney crowd that publicly said they were waiting until marriage. I didn’t have the romantic first time. That was not it for me — that sucked. Then I had to see this person all the time so I stopped eating and coped in other ways,”  she said adding that the person who assaulted her “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 said.