Originally appeared on E! Online
Demi Lovato is confident in her decision to speak out about her mental health.
The 33-year-old looked back on her three-month stay in rehab in 2010, expressing why it was so important for her to be speak out about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as her treatment for bulimia.
“I had a decision that had to be made when I had gone to treatment for the first time,” Lovato — who has also battled drug and alcohol addictions — told Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang on the Oct. 22 episode of their “Las Culturistas” podcast. “I had this very public outburst when I was 18, which I talk about in some of my documentaries.”
The Disney Channel alum, who had abruptly left a tour with Jonas Brothers for treatment after punching a backup dancer, revealed she was given a choice about what she wanted to tell people.
“In that moment, my manager at the time asked me, ‘Do you want to be public with what you’re going through,'” she recalled them telling her, “‘or do you want to sweep it under the rug and not talk about it, which you have a right to both. You don’t owe anybody anything.'”
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Speaking out about her bulimia battle prompted Lovato to be open about her overall struggles. Indeed, she saw it as way to help fans going through similar struggles.
“It was this responsibility that I was willing to take on because I wish that I could have had that growing up.” the “Confident” singer said. “There were older actresses that had come out and talked about having an eating disorder, but nobody that I could relate to at 13, especially at the time when the beauty standards were very, very dangerous.”
And that’s extended to her being candid about her battles with drug and alcohol addictions.
She continued, “That’s kind of the catalyst for why I’ve been open about all of my struggles, is in that moment when I made that decision, it set the tone for the rest of my life of like, I want to help people and the best way that I know how is sharing my personal experience with them.”
Demi Lovato is making their directorial debut with the documentary “Child Star,” a documentary featuring the stories of many Hollywood icons who got their start in the industry as children.
