Feature images of Demi Lovato for Glamour Magazine by Amanda Charchian
In this month’s cover story for Glamour, Demi Lovato answers the hard questions. She speaks candidly about her struggles with eating disorders, mental health, substance abuse and sobriety. She also acknowledges the lingering physical consequences from her 2018 overdose; Lovato had three strokes and a heart attack, still suffers from tinnitus and blind spots and can no longer drive as a result.
Demi Lovato is a different breed of pop star, unabashed about her sexuality and open about her demons in a way few Disney kids ever are. The interview goes deep, and it’s refreshing to see Demi being so transparent about what she’s dealt with in the past few years. Her four-part YouTube documentary Dancing With The Devil is due out March 23, and it sounds like it will be even more forthright than anything else she’s put out to date. In her own statement, she announced, “It’s been two years since I came face-to-face with the darkest point in my life, and now I’m ready to share my story with the world… For the first time, you’ll be able to see my chronicle of struggle and ongoing healing from my point of view. I’m grateful that I was able to take this journey to face my past head-on and finally share it with the world.”
None of the above constitutes Vapid Fluff; it’s very serious and I just wanted to commend Demi for being so brave.
However, in this Glamour interview, Demi also drops some fascinating tidbits about her sexuality and her past relationships. Most notably, she ended a brief engagement with Some Guy Max Ehrich in October 2020, at which point he literally called the paparazzi to have them take photos of him dramatically crying on the beach:
max ehrich dramatically crying on the beach to everytime by britney spears pic.twitter.com/6Tf9s0ln1d
— Britney Fan 🌹 (@BritneyHiatus) October 11, 2020
As I painstakingly mapped out for you in this extremely detailed relationship timeline, while she has often spoken about her bisexuality, Demi has yet to publicly, explicitly date anyone other than This Crying Guy, particularly boring UFC dudes or like, Wilmer Valderrama. While dating straight cis men absolutely does not make anyone “less queer” by any means and I certainly do not presume to know the sexuality or gender feelings of any of her past partners, I’ve just been hoping I’d get to see her go public with an openly queer partner! She’s teased for years, playing coy in interviews, holding hands with a girl at Disneyland, kissing girls on stage, bringing “Cool For The Summer” into our lives, but she’s still yet to have an actual confirmed girlfriend. It’s been honestly very frustrating for me, a bisexual yenta.
Auspiciously, in this interview our friend Demi Lovato happily announces to Glamour that she currently feels “too queer” to be with a cis man right now, and has been dating casually. She goes on, “When I started getting older, I started realizing how queer I really am. This past year I was engaged to a man, and when it didn’t work, I was like, ‘This is a huge sign.’ I thought I was going to spend my life with someone. Now that I wasn’t going to, I felt this sense of relief that I could live my truth.” In a goofy aside, Lovato also explains that the bright, eccentric decor of her home is also a visceral reaction to the end of her engagement to Whatever His Name Was. As she explains, “I almost designed this house for a straight couple – I’m not straight, but it was a hetero situation. This could have been a very normal-looking house.”
It’s exciting to see Demi leaning into her queerness so hard; the article even describes her current pixie haircut as “a symbolic shedding of the heteronormative box she was confined in for years.” As she tells the reporter, “I know who I am and what I am, but I’m just waiting until a specific timeline to come out to the world as what I am. I’m following my healers’ timeline, and I’m using this time to really study and educate myself on my journey and what I’m preparing to do… I am now making choices — for the day, and then the future — about what it is I want, and what’s going to make me the happiest.”
In my heart of hearts, I have always been in Demi’s corner, which is why it’s disappointing that she elaborates by explaining, “I hooked up with a girl and was like, ‘I like this a lot more.’ It felt better. It felt right. Some of the guys I was hanging out with – when it would come time to be sexual or intimate, I would have this kind of visceral reaction. ‘Like, I just don’t want to put my mouth there.’ It wasn’t even based on the person it was with. I just found myself really appreciating the friendships of those people more than the romance, and I didn’t want the romance from anybody of the opposite sex.”
Demi been known to publicly call out transphobia in the past; just recently she was dragged by conservatives for declaring gender reveal parties to be transphobic. On her Instagram, she reposted images quoting gender non-conforming artist and activist Alok Vaid-Menon, which explains in part, “Gender reveals are based on the illusion that genitals = gender and that there are only two options, ‘boy’ or ‘girl.’ This definition erases the fact that there are boys with vaginas and girls with penises and that there are people who are neither boys nor girls. The idea that sex is based on genitalia is inconsistent with science.”
Because of this, it’s strange and disappointing that she would use such cis-centric language to describe her partners; her point is understood but it seems badly phrased. It’s definitely time for Demi to work on that, as it appears clear that the time has come for all of us to begin casually dating Demi Lovato.
To that end, we must ask the big question: could you find yourself casually dating Demi Lovato? It does sounds like she’s ready to take that step with you. Here we all are, not dating Demi Lovato, and it turns out we could at this very moment be dating Demi Lovato. Demi Lovato, if you are reading this, I know we’re in the middle of a pandemic but maybe we could get coffee in the park? We could hang outside the dog run with our almond milk lattes and talk about new ways to speak more inclusively in interviews! Just an idea.
(Posting anonymously for the privacy of my partners)
I’ve been intimate with cis men, cis women and trans women, and I didn’t automatically read Demi’s comments as transphobic or cis-centric. I have had similar squicked-out feelings about “putting my mouth there” with cis men, that I don’t feel with trans women who still have their original anatomy. It isn’t the same experience at all, for many many reasons.
Given her wide audience and platform, I get why it would have been better for her to express herself differently (even if she does happen to have a specific genital preference), but I don’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that she intended to equate anatomy with gender.
i agree that it’s not necessarily what she was saying and that those experiences are very different, but i would be remiss if i didn’t address the way she phrased it.
Oh for sure, I think you were right to address it here. This was more a general comment on people’s perceptions about what she meant.
I’d consider giving up my date to the natural history museum with Jen to drink almond lattes with Demi. For the good of the queer community, of course.
A service to us all
I don’t think there was anything transphobic/cis-centric about that paragraph apart from the phrase ‘the opposite sex’. She’s just talking about her personal experiences – as another commenter here said, I have also personally felt that exact feeling in past relationships with men (I’m gay) and I’m not sure what was wrong about her language there. She’s allowed to have felt uncomfortable in her romantic/sexual relationships with men. Maybe there’s something I’m not picking up on?
Speaking from my own personal experience: When I first came out, I identified as bi. But once I experienced othering (going on dates with women and dealing with homophobia firsthand), dating the cis hetero men I dated and experiencing their specific privileged worldviews got really old really fast.
I wanted to second some of the other comments and say I’m also unsure what about her wording was wrong/how it could be perceived as hurtful? It seemed like she was describing feeling uncomfortable giving cis-men oral sex which is valid.
I agree with comments above. I’ve felt squicked about mens genitals (cis or trans) differently than women’s (cis or trans) and think it’s worth noting and honoring and should be ok to speak about. She didnt even say a particular genitalia, just left it very vague, so honestly her remark could apply to “guys” generally with any type of genitals. I think? Idk maybe we can all discuss over coffee in the park
Demi is awesome, a force of nature.
I’m looking forward to long-range paparazzi shots of Demi and Stef drinking coffee in the park.
“Is Demi secretly dating Vapid Fluff Editor ? These jaw-dropping photos will shock you”