Demi Lovato has revealed that her hit song, “Cool for the Summer”, was written about a secret fling she had with a famous woman.
The non-binary singer, 31, who uses they/them/she/her pronouns, released the 2015 track before she publicly came out as bisexual in 2020.
With its queer-coded lyrics, “Tell me what you want, what you like, it’s okay / I’m a little curious too / Tell me if it’s wrong, if it’s right, I don’t care / I can keep a secret, can you?”, the song has been hailed as a gay anthem within the LGBT+ community.
Discussing the inspiration behind the single in a new interview with Howard Stern on his eponymous, SiriusXM radio show, Lovato was asked if she had notified the woman before she wrote the song about her.
“No,” the “Heart Attack” singer replied, with Stern following up: “Do you think she knows you wrote this about her?”
“Um, no,” Lovato answered.
“Oh, how honoured she would be. You don’t want to give her that?” Stern responded, making Lovato laugh.
“Sometimes I write songs and I just... let them be,” the Grammy-winning artist said.
“I just feel bad for her. She’s not someone famous, right?” the host continued, before Lovato challenged him, saying: “What if she is?”
“I’m curious, is she?” Stern asked. “Yeah,” the Camp Rock alum said.
A surprised Stern replied: “Then why wouldn’t you tell her?”
“I’m in a relationship now, and I feel like that would be inappropriate,” Lovato responded, to which Stern agreed that she “would screw things up” if she told the woman now.
Lovato is currently dating musician Jutes. The pair went public with their relationship in August 2022.
Asked if her relationship with the woman was ever public, Lovato responded: “No.”
“Oh my God! You two sneaking around – you with another famous woman sneaking around!” Stern said in disbelief.
“I know. People are going to wonder now,” the “Sorry Not Sorry” pop star said.
In a July interview, Lovato spoke candidly about coming out to her parents when she was 25 years old.
According to Lovato, she always knew she was queer growing up, but didn’t come out as pansexual until years later. “It took me until I was 25 to come out to my mom. At the time I was bisexual and then I realised I was pansexual. It took me a while,” the singer said.
The songwriter came out as “queer” in July 2020, and then identified herself as pansexual and sexually fluid the following year in March. In May 2021, Lovato revealed she is non-binary.
