Demi Lovato: 'I lost my virginity in a rape'

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.

Mar 17, 2021, 2:37 pm ISTWorldIANS

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.Â

"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," Â she said adding that the person who assaulted her "never got in trouble for it".Â

"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.Â