Demi Lovato says she understands her sexuality better after brief engagement with former fiancé

American singer Demi Lovato has revealed that her brief engagement with former fiancé Max Ehrich helped her understand her sexuality better and that she started realising how queer she was only as she got older.

She explains, “When I started getting older, I started realising 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.”

Max and Demi started dating in early 2020 and announced their engagement the same year in July. However, they called it off in September 2020.

She also revealed that she had had a romantic encounter with a woman once and that it had felt right. “I hooked up with a girl and was like, ‘I like this a lot more.’ It felt better. It felt right,” Demi said.

However, Lovato added that she knows “who she was and what she was”, but was “waiting for the right time” to “come out to the world as what she was”.

“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,” said Lovato.

Also opening up about the negative response she received when she dyed her hair in 2014, Demi told media sources, “My fans react when I colour my hair. If they didn’t like it, I saw it.”

When Demi dyed her hair pink and shaved half her head, the negative response she had received saddened her. She said, “It reignited that fear inside of me of being who I really am.”

Lovato noted how cutting her hair represented “a symbolic shedding of the heteronormative box (she) was confined in for years.”

Demi has spoken in the past about her struggles with eating disorders. The singer had also been in rehab after an alleged drug overdose in July 2018. She now says that while she has moved on from the substances that caused the overdose, she has decided not to deprive herself when she wants a drink or weed in moderation.

“I called [my recovery case manager] and was like, ‘Something’s not right. I’m living one side of my life completely legalizing, and this other side following a program that’s telling me if I slip up, I'm going to die... I think I want to try this balance thing in the substance side of my life too,’” she was quoted as saying.

She added that they had responded positively. “They were like, ‘She deserves this opportunity to make that choice for herself.’ So I did,” she said.