Demi Lovato Opened Up About Being Raped At 15 And Her Road To Healing

    "They never got taken out of the movie they were in."

    Morgan Sloss
    by Morgan Sloss

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Warning: This piece includes mention of sexual assault.

    Demi Lovato has been super open about her struggles over the years.

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    She recently revealed that a former eating disorder led to the near-fatal 2018 overdose that left her with brain damage and blind spots in her vision.

    And now, she's opening up further about being raped at just 15 years old.

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    "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 said in her documentary, Dancing with the Devil.

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    "And that didn't matter to them, they did it anyways," she continued. "And I internalized it, and I told myself it was my fault because I still went in the room with him. I still hooked up with him."

    "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."

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    Demi recalled that even when she told adults, her alleged rapist "never got in trouble for it. They never got taken out of the movie they were in."

    "Sometimes, people hear my music from when I was a teenager, and they're like, 'Oh, you were so angry.' I'm like, 'Yeah, and now you guys get to see why I was so angry,'" she told People in a recent interview.

    The 28-year-old said that finally sharing her story is "freeing."

    "It really lets that anger that was inside of me dissolve. I had let go of a lot of the anger beforehand, but this was kind of just the final send-off, like, okay, I can really heal from this now."

    The singer hopes that her story will help others who've gone through similar experiences.

    "Now that I've talked about it and now that I know that other people could hear my story, I just hope that it helps people. Sexual abuse is something that people feel is taboo to talk about and to come forward about, but I want to show people that you can, and it's okay."

    If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can find help here.