Demi Lovato is paying tribute to her past. The 27-year-old singer’s music video for her new song, “I Love Me,” features several Easter eggs for her fans.
Lovato released her new track on Friday, March 6, more than a year and a half after her near-fatal overdose in July 2018.
“I have to preface it with the fact that I got sober at 19. So I got sober at an age where I wasn’t even legally allowed to drink,” the “Tell Me You Love Me” singer said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday, March 5. “I got the help that I needed at the time, and I took on the approach of a one-size-fits-all solution, which is sobriety, just sobriety. My whole team took that approach and we did it and we ran with it and it worked for a long time.”
The former Disney Channel star has been open about her battles with substance abuse, mental health and an eating disorder in the past.
“My bulimia got really bad, and I asked for help and I didn’t receive the help that I needed,” Lovato told Ellen DeGeneres about her relapse on Thursday. “So I was stuck in this unhappy position. Here I am sober and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I’m six years sober, but I’m miserable. I’m even more miserable than I was when I was drinking. Why am I sober?’”
She continued: “My core issues are abandonment from my birth father as a child. He was an addict, alcoholic, we had to leave him. And I have vivid memories of him leaving, so when [my team] left, they totally played on that fear and I felt completely abandoned, so I drank.”
“I Love Me” marks the second song Lovato has released post-treatment. She previously addressed her cry for help on the track “Anyone,” which she performed at the Grammys in January.
“I wish I could go back in time and help that version of myself,” Lovato said in an interview with Apple Music Beats 1 host Zane Lowe about the song. “I listen back to these lyrics and I hear it as a cry for help.”
Scroll through for a breakdown of the references in Lovato’s new video:
