Demi Lovato pays a visit to Ellen DeGeneres on Monday (Feb. 22), appearing in studio to chat about her radical new hairdo, performing at the Biden/Harris inauguration and the painful truths she shares in the upcoming YouTube docuseries, Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil. “I was super nervous because it’s the inauguration,” said the 28-year-old star who crushed Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” during January’s prime time special honoring President Joe Biden and veep Kamala Harris.
What most people don’t know is that Lovato was singing in front of a green screen, so she had no idea how it would turn out. It was, of course, great and Demi said she just loved watching Biden dancing along with his grandson in his arms. “That was so cute… it made me so happy,” she said.
During the chat, Ellen complimented Lovato’s new close-cropped, hot pink hairstyle and the singer explained that after going short in November she feels more free and authentic. “I also feel like I used to hide behind my hair,” said Lovato, who described how she used her hair to cover her body when she was struggling with an eating disorder.
“When I started doing all this work on myself I thought, ‘what is something I’ve been holding onto my whole life that I need to let go of?'” she said of her formerly long, luxurious locks. The four-part docuseries due out on March 23 will delve into the singer’s near-fatal 2018 overdose, which she recently revealed caused three strokes, a heart attack and brain damage.
“I talk about a lot [in the documentary],” Lovato said, offering thanks to all the people who reached out with love and support after last week’s debut of the trailer. “What’s great is that we live in a time where nobody’s perfect and we’re not going to get role models by watching people not make mistakes,” she said. “We learn from our role models who’ve overcome their deepest, darkest struggles.”
Mostly, though, Lovato said she wanted to se the record straight about what went down during the period of her overdose and recovery. “I just wanted to tell the world, ‘Hey, this is what happened. This is how I got through it and hopefully this can help you too,'” she said. Demi also talked about the time she was invited to Hawaii for a second date and the person promised her a big surprise.
The only details she got were to “dress comfortable” for the date, so she slipped on a silk jumpsuit, with wedges… and they told her that was not going to work. You see, on a previous date, Lovato had mentioned that she’d always wanted to go skydiving, but didn’t know that the very next date would have her jumping out of a plane. “And sure enough we go and we jumped from the highest point you can go without an oxygen tank, which is 14,000 feet or above,” she said of the date that had her falling for more than two minutes.
Lovato later returned to perform her duet with Sam Fischer on his single “What Other People Say.” Watch Lovato on Ellen below.
