Demi Lovato has revealed in an upcoming four-part documentary about her life, titled Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil, for the first time that she suffered three strokes and a heart attack.
Demi Lovato is telling it all.
On Wednesday, YouTube premiered the trailer for Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, a documentary about her near-fatal 2018 drug overdose and the effects it had on Lovato’s life. The trailer gives the first look into what the 28-year-old songstress faced after being hospitalized. She also reveals that she had three strokes and a heart attack in the hospital.
Alongside the documentary’s director Michael D. Ratner at the documentary’s Television Critics Association panel on Wednesday, Lovato talked more about the effects the overdose had on her body physically and on her life, emotionally.
“I was left with brain damage, and I still deal with the effects of that today. I don’t drive a car, because I have blind spots on my vision,” she told reporters. “And I also for a long time had a really hard time reading. It was a big deal when I was able to read out of a book, which was like two months later because my vision was so blurry.”
“I dealt with a lot of the repercussions and I feel like they are still there to remind me of what could happen if I ever get into a dark place again,” she added. “I’m grateful for those reminders, but I’m so grateful that I was someone that didn’t have to do a lot of rehabbing. The rehabbing came on the emotional side.”
The singer, however, said that she “wouldn’t change a thing” about the aftermath of the overdose.
“Everything had to happen in order for me to learn the lessons that I learned,” she told PEOPLE. “It was a painful journey, and I look back and sometimes I get sad when I think of the pain that I had to endure to overcome what I have, but I don’t regret anything.”
“I’m so proud of the person I am today,” she added. “And I’m so proud that people get to see it in this documentary and I couldn’t be more grateful that I had someone by my side.”
In the revelatory trailer for the documentary, Lovato’s friends and family — including her mother and step-father, along with her sister — do interviews talking about the grueling moments that led up to her overdose and what happened afterward. Elton John is also interviewed.
“Anytime you suppress a part of yourself, it’s going to overflow,” Lovato says in the trailer.
The trailer also shows Lovato throughout the last year, including before her called-off engagement to Max Ehrich. During the interview, she also spoke about her past sobriety.
“I am holding myself accountable,” Lovato told reporters. “I learned a lot from my past. I was sober for six years and I learned so much from that journey. That’s the main thing that I learned was coming forward and talking about my story held me accountable.”
“That’s a huge reason as to why I’m doing this, but I think that I was just so proud of the growth that I experienced and something inside of me was really excited to share that with people,” she added.
The singer said that it wasn’t just the substances that led her to her “breaking point” but also “past traumas” and things she faced within the industry.
“As long as I continue to tell my truth, I’m going to make music that resonates with people,” Lovato said Wednesday. “And that’s my purpose. I’m an artist that cares a lot about her community — and my community is the entire planet — so I just I’m always striving to help. I think that my work is going to only benefit now that I’ve learned so much about myself.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please contact the SAMHSA substance abuse helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
“Dancing With the Devil,” which will open the 2021 SXSW film festival in March, will premiere on YouTube March 23.
