Demi Lovato revealed on Tuesday that she first contemplated suicide at age seven and claimed school bullies sent around a “suicide petition” targeting her in elementary school.
The “Confident” singer sat down with Dr. Phil to discuss her difficult childhood, addictions and sobriety during her rise to fame.
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“The very first time I was suicidal was when I was seven and I had this fascination with death,” the 25-year-old pop star said. “I have experienced things that I have not talked about and don’t know if I ever will talk about.”
The Disney Channel alum added that she experienced an immense level of pain in her youth: “At seven, I knew that if I were to take my own life that the pain would end.”
While Lovato has sought help for depression, addictions to drugs and alcohol, an eating disorder and bipolar disorder, she said those suicidal thoughts have crept back into her mind during difficult moments.
“It came back when I was bullied; it came back several times when I was struggling with depression — my bipolar disorder. I turned to cutting and there was a while there when my mom was afraid to wake me up in the morning she didn’t know if I would be alive or not, because every time I cut it got deeper and deeper,” she confessed.
The singer said she has learned to overcome her substance addiction and deal with her bipolar disorder, but her battle with bulimia remains a constant struggle.
“My struggles with my food issues are something that I still deal with,” Lovato said.
During the chat on Dr. Phil, the host asked when and why the singer, who just celebrated six years of sobriety, turned to drugs and alcohol for comfort at such an early age.
“I was bullied when I was 12,” she said. “I was searching for something to numb me out and to fit in and I turned to alcohol and that’s where I felt relief.”
She recalled that classmates bullied her for being on Barney and Friends when she was younger and that eventually some “friends” circulated a “suicide petition” around the school.
“The thing that really hurt me is that friends turned on me. It was over petty drama that 12-year-olds have in the seventh grade,” she said during the interview. “The reaction was so much more extreme than what was normal, they had a suicide petition and they passed it around the school and got people to sign it. I was cyberbullied and they made fun of my weight.”
Lovato also got candid about her tumultuous relationship with her father Patrick Lovato, an alcoholic who abandoned Demi and her mother when she was young. Patrick eventually died at the age of 53 from cancer in 2013.
“He was abusive. He was mean but he wanted to be a good person and he wanted to have his family, and when my mom married my stepdad, he still had this huge heart where he would say, ‘I am so glad that he’s taking care of you and doing the job that I wish I could do,’” she said.
She said while many of her emotional issues revolved around the “sadness” she felt from her father’s abandonment and loss, she finds comfort in understanding that many of his actions were driven by mental illness, similar to what she has also experienced.
