It’s one thing to own up to one’s past mistakes, but in recent weeks Demi Lovato has made a multi-platform cautionary tale out of her struggles with substance abuse. Her 2018 overdose is the subject of her new song, YouTube documentary and album, all of which are called “Dancing With the Devil… the Art of Starting Over.”
While she goes over the details of the night and the life events that led up to it in painful detail in the documentary, the video, which she co-directed with documentary director Michael D. Ratner, re-enacts the evening of her O.D. and sexual assault, in broad but disturbing detail.
The clip opens with her singing from a hospital bed with an oxygen tube beneath her nose. It then cuts to the evening in question, where an increasingly inebriated Lovato is seen downing multiple drinks by herself in a bar, then bleary-eyed in a car with other people whose faces aren’t visible. She is then in a bedroom, where a man drops a bag that is presumably filled with the drugs that nearly killed her, and then the drug dealer is seen standing beside Lovato, who is passed out in her bed. He is then shown leaving, while she is apparently nude under the covers.
The clip concludes with contact information for addiction assistance (1-800-662-HELP (4357) or samhsa.gov; sexual assault (1-800-656-HOPE 4673) and depresstion (text HOME 741741 / U.K. SHOUT 85258 / Canada ConNECT 686868).
“Thought I knew my limit, yeah/ I thought that I could quit it, yeah,” she sings in the song.
“I thought that I could walk away easily
But here I am, falling down on my knees
Praying for better days to come and wash this pain away
Could you please forgive me?
Lord, I’m so sorry for dancing with the devil.”
