Demi Lovato says she was r@ped as a teenager by someone she knew

US singer Demi Lovato revealed she was raped as a virgin during her teenage years as a Disney Channel actress and pop star, in a tell-all documentary that opened the online South By Southwest festival on Tuesday.

“Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil,” a YouTube Originals series, centres on Lovato’s notorious 2018 fentanyl overdose that caused her brain damage and partial blindness, and her ongoing battles with addiction.

The four episodes, presented as the opening night film of a SXSW forced online by the pandemic, also contained new details of sexual assaults suffered by Lovato, including an attack on the night of her overdose.

“I know what I’m about to say is going to shock people too. But when I was a teenager I was in a very similar situation – I lost my virginity in a rape,” says Lovato.
We were hooking up but I said, ‘Hey, this is not going any further. I’m a virgin and I don’t want to lose it this way,’” she recounts.

Her 2018 overdose prompted a flurry of statements of solidarity from fellow stars who praised her personality — although the attention also triggered a backlash by social media users, who noted that many non-celebrities suffer from drugs with little fanfare.

SXSW Online 2021 opened earlier on Tuesday with a virtual performance from Janelle Monae before a keynote talk with Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia lawmaker credited with recent key Democratic victories in the state. The film, television, music and technology conference runs until Saturday.