Demi Lovato reveals she had three strokes and a heart attack after overdosing: ‘I was left with brain damage’
Demi Lovato in the trailer for her documentary. (Screen capture via YouTube/Demi Lovato)
Demi Lovato suffered three strokes and a heart attack after overdosing in 2018, leaving doctors fearing she had just minutes to live.
The singer, who has frankly discussed her struggles with substance abuse, opened up about her health in a trailer for upcoming documentary Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil.
“I had three strokes,” Lovato said in the trailer uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday (17 February).
“I had a heart attack. My doctors said that I had five to 10 more minutes.”
Friends at the time thought “she should be dead”, one chillingly said in the trailer, with Lovato admitting: “I’ve had a lot of lives, like a cat. I’m on my ninth life.”
Demi Lovato ‘left with brain damage’ after overdose.
The “Commander in Chief” singer candidly said she is still living with the effects of the overdose.
“I was left with brain damage, and I still deal with the effects of that today,” she explained. “I don’t drive a car, because I have blind spots on my vision.”
“And I also for a long time had a really hard time reading. It was a big deal when I was able to read out of a book, which was like two months later because my vision was so blurry.”
Demi Lovato stated that she wants to “set the record straight” with the documentary, which also features Elton John. In the clip, he said: “When you’re young, and you’re famous, my God, it’s tough.”
The 28-year-old was hospitalised in Los Angeles on 24 July 2018 – only a month after dropping the song “Sober”, a wrenching number where she detailed a recent relapse after six years of sobriety.
Apologising to her family, friends, fans and prospective lovers, she sings: “I promise I’ll get help/It wasn’t my intention/I’m sorry to myself.”
She came to describe the day of her overdose as her “miracle day“, adding in a social media post: “Over the past two years, I’ve done more work on myself than I have in my entire life.”
It comes ahead of the 23 March release of Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil. The four-part documentary is directed by Michael Ratner and will chart Lovato’s road to recovery and career.
