What’s wrong with being “Confident”? Nothing, according to Demi Lovato, who embraces her curves in a raunchy new cover shoot for Complex magazine. The “Cool for the Summer” songstress, 23, went topless in a pair of sheer blue panties while sitting atop an inflatable banana.
And her body wasn’t the only thing she shared. Lovato openly admitted that she no longer talks to her longtime pal and Disney costar Selena Gomez, but said it doesn’t have to do with Gomez’s on-off romance with Justin Bieber, despite rumors to the contrary.
“He’s actually a nice guy,” Lovato said of Bieber. “I don’t really know him that well, but he seems to have grown up.” Of her friendship with Gomez, 23, she added, “But, you know, when you’re young and you get older, you change and people change. You have things in common, and then all of a sudden, you don’t. It’s just a part of life.”
Though she’s pals with Iggy Azalea and the Jonas Brothers, Lovato has no interest in a celebrity squad a la Gomez’s bestie Taylor Swift.
“I don’t really hang out with celebrities,” she said. “I’m not the type of person that’s on Instagram posting pictures of me and tons of my best friends. I have my core group, and they’re the type of people that will be there for me in the middle of the night. They’re the type of people that are like, ‘You’re being a bitch right now. Don’t talk to me that way,’ and I’m like, ‘Whoa. Sorry. I didn’t realize it.’ I don’t have anybody around me who kisses my ass.”
Lovato claims most of her friends aren’t celebrities, but she is close to Azalea — so close that she will be one of the rapper’s bridesmaids in her wedding to Nick Young.
“She’s very, very, very real. What you see is what you get,” Lovato said of the “Fancy” emcee, 25. “I think sometimes that pushes people away, but that’s what I admire about her. She’s the furthest thing from fake… The fact that she’s gone through so much and I’ve gone through so much and on a Friday night we can make gingerbread houses together instead of going out and drinking our sorrows away — that’s f—king cool.”
The former child star has been very candid about her dark past, but claims that fans don’t even know the half of it.
“The stuff that I have shared, I feel like sometimes it is so heavy, and I’m like, ‘Y’all think that’s heavy? I haven’t even shared the heavy part,’” she said. “But I don’t feel like I’ll ever have to until I write a book or something. If you were to sit my friends and me in a group together and we all shared our life stories, you wouldn’t understand how we’re still alive because of either our addictions or the stuff that we’ve survived.”
Fortunately, she has a great support system in her boyfriend of five years, Wilmer Valderrama. The pair started dating when Lovato was 18 and the That ‘70s Show star was 30, and the Disney Channel alum admitted that she pursued the relationship first.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god. You’re so attractive.’ And he was like, ‘You are not 18. Get away from me,’” she recalled. “Then we became really good friends, and he was there for me through a number of situations and breakups and whatever.”
When asked about a recent interview in which she told an Australian radio station that she would say “yes” if Valderrama, 35, were to propose right now, Lovato revealed that her actor boyfriend wasn’t exactly thrilled by her response.
“He was like, ‘Umm, babe?’ And I was like, ‘What?’ He was like, ‘Do you want to warn me with this stuff?’” she said. “I was like, ‘It just came out! I’m really sorry.’ He was like, ‘Don’t apologize.’”
In fact, she already views his parents like in-laws and shared that they are constantly telling the couple to “make babies.” Though Lovato and Valderrama have gotten more public with their romance on social media, the VMA performer called Valderrama’s That ‘70s Show costars Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis her celebrity couple role models.
“They’re a really great example in how private they keep their lives,” she said of the first-time parents. “We’re obviously more public when it comes to social media and talking about each other in interviews, but they’re a really good example of how to keep it balanced.”
