The 28-year-old half-Mexican American singer/actress has released her latest album Dancing With the Devil… The Art of Starting Over.
Lovato’s 19-track album is separated into two parts, with the “Prelude” including the first three tracks — “Anyone,” which she debuted at the 2020 Grammys, the title track “Dancing With the Devil” and “ICU (Madison’s Lullabye)” — detailing her struggles with addiction and near-fatal heroin overdose in 2018.
The Art of Starting Over turns the page and starts a new chapter in Lovato’s recovery journey with the remaining 16 songs.
Following her previously released “What Other People Say” single with Sam Fischer, the album includes highly anticipated collaborations with Ariana Grande (“Met Him Last Night“), Noah Cyrus (“Easy“), and Saweetie (“My Girlfriends Are My Boyfriend“).
Lovato belts out the stirring ballad from her hospital bed and in some scenes, occasionally lies unconscious as her family tearfully watches over her and holds her hand. The devil is also in the details of the accompanying visual, which Lovato co-directed with Michael D. Ratner, who also helmed her four-part YouTube Originals docuseries Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil.
Demi Lovato is reliving a traumatic moment from her past…
The 28-year-old half-Mexican American singer/actress has released the official music video for her new single, “Dancing With the Devil… the Art of Starting Over.”
While she discusses the painful details of the night and the life events that led up to her ovedose in a recently released documentary, the video, which Lovato co-directed with documentary director Michael D. Ratner, re-enacts the evening of her O.D. and sexual assault, in broad but disturbing detail.
The video opens with her singing from a hospital bed with an oxygen tube beneath her nose. It then cuts to the evening in question, where an increasingly inebriated Lovato is seen downing multiple drinks by herself in a bar, then bleary-eyed in a car with other people whose faces aren’t visible. She is then in a bedroom, where a man drops a bag that is presumably filled with the drugs that nearly killed her, and then the drug dealer is seen standing beside Lovato, who is passed out in her bed. He is then shown leaving, while she is apparently nude under the covers.
The clip ends with contact information for addiction assistance (1-800-662-HELP (4357) or samhsa.gov; sexual assault (1-800-656-HOPE 4673) and depresstion (text HOME 741741 / U.K. SHOUT 85258 / Canada CONNECT 686868).
“Thought I knew my limit, yeah/ I thought that I could quit it, yeah,” she sings in the song. “I thought that I could walk away easily, but here I am, falling down on my knees, praying for better days to come and wash this pain away. Could you please forgive me? Lord, I’m so sorry for dancing with the devil.”
Another song, “The Kind of Lover I Am,” directly nods to Lovato’s queer identity that she subtly hinted at in her 2015 hit “Cool for the Summer,” with lyrics about how it “doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man.”
The pop star also confirmed another featured artist will be on her forthcoming LP: Noah Cyrus. She posted an audio snippet of their collaboration on her socials over the weekend.
Dancing With the Devil… The Art of Starting Over serves as the companion project to her YouTube Originals docuseries Dancing With theDevil, which arrives on Tuesday. It previously premiered at SXSW on March 16.
Demi Lovatoopens up about her near fatal overdose…
The 28-year-old half-Mexican American singer/actress has premiered the trailer to her upcoming docuseries,Dancing With the Devil.
The nearly three-minute clip from the YouTube Originals series, which explores her near fatal overdose in July 2018, features the star honestly discussing substance abuse, with Lovato at one point admitting, “I don’t know why I’m sober anymore.”
Elton John and Christina Aguilera also appear to discuss the difficulties of fame at a young age and her recovery, while the “Commander in Chief” singer’s family and friends explain how good she is at hiding her struggles. The interviews with her nearest and dearest are interspersed with a smiling and seemingly happy Lovato, before cutting to images of her partying one month before her OD.
“I snapped,” Lovato says in the trailer, which offers a first listen of her original song also titled “Dancing with the Devil.” After her family and friends recount their fears for her life as she fought to stay alive in the hospital, Lovato explains that she had three strokes and a heart attack. But now, she’s ready to take control of her future.
“I’ve had a lot of lives — like my cat, you know? I’m on my ninth life,” she says. “I’m ready to get back to doing what I love, which is making music.”
After premiering the teaser, Lovato discussed the documentary and the lingering effects of her overdose with reporters, including how the strokes and heart attack impacted her. “I was left with brain damage and I still deal with the effects of that today,” she shared. “I don’t drive a car because of blind spots in my vision. … I had a lot of trouble reading.”
Though Lovato says she’s still dealing with the repercussions, she’s grateful for them and wouldn’t change a thing. “They’re still there to remind me what could happen if I ever get into a dark place again. I’m grateful for those reminders,” she said. “It was a painful journey, and I look back and sometimes — I get sad when I think about the pain I had to endure, but I don’t regret anything. I’m so proud of the person I am today.”
The singer also shared that the reason she wanted to be as honest and open as she is in Dancing With the Devil is she wanted to set the record straight and clear up any rumors. “I wanted to reveal it all for my fans and say this is who I am and this is where I am today,” she said. “If it helps you, then I hope that it can. That was ultimately my purpose in putting this out.”
While the teaser focuses on the near-fatal overdose, Lovato told reporters that there’s more to the four-part series. “It’s not just about my journey. I touch on so many topics in this documentary that’s not just about substances … past traumas that I’ve dealt with but have never spoken about,” she said. “Waking up in 2018, I realized there is still so much work I have to do on myself. … It’s about self-acceptance, it’s about not conforming to what other people think you should conform to. You are who you are.”
Dancing With the Devil is set to open the SXSW film festival, which is happening March 16-20. The four-part docuseries premieres on YouTube March 23.
YouTube has given the green light to a four-part documentary series that follows the 28-year-old part-Mexican American singer/actress.
Entitled Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, the docuseries will premiere on March 23 with the first two episodes. The final two episodes will then air weekly.
The new series will follow Lovato returning to show fans her personal and musical journey over the past three years. Last year, she performed the National Anthem before Super Bowl 54 between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.
The series will be directed by Michael D. Ratner, who was a director on and exec produced Quibi’s recent &Music series, and produced by Ratner’s OBB Pictures, which produced YouTube’s recent Justin Bieber: Seasons series.
The announcement comes nearly two years after the digital platform and the “Sorry Not Sorry” singer were set to do a follow-up doc to Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated.
That film, which was directed by Hannah Lux Davis, was released in 2017 and has been viewed more than 32M times. It chronicled the recording of her Tell Me You Love Me record and her life and career including her stint on the Disney Channel and her struggles with bipolar disorder and addiction.
The Google-owned service had been in talks to make a follow-up film in 2018 before Lovato overdosed and that project was put on hold. She’s understood to have recently seen the Justin Bieber series and reached back out to YouTube to say she is ready to make another documentary.
“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,” said Lovato.
“We are excited to continue sharing Demi’s brave story,” added Susanne Daniels, Global Head of Original Content, YouTube. “YouTube Originals is committed to telling real stories about the complexities of life and for Demi to use our global platform to open up about this chapter is something we are very proud of.”
“Demi’s willingness to explore the darkest elements of her life is going to leave the audience with a complete understanding of everything she’s been through and ultimately where she is going. Demi stands for empowerment, and this documentary is going to answer the many questions that have been out there – providing a real window into the life of one of the biggest stars in the world, who is simply a human being,” said director and executive producer Ratner.
