Demi Lovato has been working hard to love and accept herself, even though she “doesn’t believe” she’s perfect. In fact, that’s not the goal for her anymore.
The singer recently appeared on the newest installment of model Ashley Graham’s Pretty Big Deal podcast, which dropped Tuesday (February 18); the two shared a brief chat about how Lovato is learning to appreciate her body in a healthy way.
“I have a bunch of people that I work with in the recovery aspect of my life. One of them is a dietician, one of them is a therapist,” she said of her support team. “Now when I look in the mirror and I start to have a negative thought, I don’t stop and say, ‘No, you’re beautiful, you’re gorgeous, I love you, you’re perfect the way you are.’ Because I don’t believe that.”
She explained that, instead, she preferred to tell herself “You’re healthy and I accept you,” in a bid to “express gratitude” and “reality” rather than making an effort to convince herself of a statement she might not believe on any given day.
“I would love to be in a place where I can say I’m super confident in my body, but the reality is, I’m not,” Lovato admitted. She noted that she recently stopped keeping track of her weight, which gave her “freedom.”
“It’s the most free that I’ve ever felt in my whole life,” she said triumphantly, adding that she hasn’t worn a pair of jeans in “forever.”
“I don’t like jeans, they don’t make me feel great right now. And I don’t have to fucking wear jeans if I don’t want to,” she explained, to Graham’s approval.
Lovato has been on a long road to recovery, which recently culminated in her releasing “Anyone,” a beautiful song about her experience with sobriety and self-love.
At the end of January, she took the stage at the Grammys to perform the track — and obviously there were no jeans in sight. Instead, she appeared in a flowing white gown to perform the track, which she had written just four days ahead of her near-fatal overdose in July 2018. The star poured her heart out during the performance, with soft piano accompanying her soaring vocals as she sang about her experience with substance use.
“I listen back and hear these lyrics as a cry for help,” Lovato recently told Zane Lowe of the new single. “You kind of listen back to it and you think, how did nobody listen to this song and think, ‘Let’s help this girl’?”
Now, it seems she is in a good place – or getting there – one step at a time.
