Demi Lovato has released a music video in which she appears to re-enact the night of her near-fatal drug overdose in 2018.
The video for the singer’s new single “Dancing With the Devil” – also the name of her recently released YouTube series chronicling her journey through relapse and recovery – dropped last night (1 April).
In it, the “Skyscraper” singer appears to recreate the events leading up to her 2018 overdose in harrowing details that reflect the night that she describes in her documentary.
When Lovato overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl, she suffered three strokes and a heart attack. She was told by doctors that she had five to 10 minutes to live. Almost three years later, she is still experiencing blind spots in her vision and brain impairment.
The video – which opens with a trigger warning over “content depicting addiction, drug use, trauma, and sexual abuse” – sees Lovato lying in a hospital bed with tubes in her neck.
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In the docuseries, the musician’s mother, Dianna De La Garza, describes a similar scene of Lovato in the ICU. “She had a tube in her neck that was taking her blood into a machine and then putting it back into her neck,” she revealed.
Throughout the clip, Lovato is seen partying in a bar and contacting her drug dealer who offers her a duffle bag of drugs. In the docuseries, the 28-year-old recalled a separate occasion during which she went on “a shopping spree” and was first introduced to heroin.
The video also shows Lovato lying unconscious in a bed, left alone by her drug dealer. In the third instalment of her YouTube series, the musician spoke about being sexually assaulted and “left for dead” the night of her overdose.
“What people don’t realise about that night for me is that I didn’t just overdose, I also was taken advantage of,” she recalls in the series. “When they found me, I was naked. I was blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me.”
The singer is then seen being nursed back to health in the hospital, with the camera pulling focus on her neck tattoo that reads: “Survivor”, which fans first spotted on Lovato in 2019.
“Dancing With the Devil” is the title track of Lovato’s new album. You can read The Independent’s four-star review of the record here.
If you have been affected by this article, you can contact the following organisations for support: actiononaddiction.org.uk, mind.org.uk, nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth, mentalhealth.org.uk.
