Less than a minute into Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated, the 25-year-old admits that during filming for her last film of this nature, Staying Strong (2012) – in which she spoke about her stint in rehab and numerous personal demons – she was “on cocaine”.
What follows is one of the best pop-docs since Britney Spears’ infamous For The Record (2008): a blisteringly honest journey through its subject’s exhilarating highs and frightening lows, peppered with brilliant music from her latest record Tell Me You Love Me.
Things like her love life (she’s open to dating men and women) and recent split from Wilmer Valderamma (she’s still very fond of him) may generate more headlines, but it’s the stark openness with which she and her team discuss her personal struggles that is most arresting.
When Lovato released her incredible ballad Skyscraper in 2011 – so emotionally battering it was covered for an X Factor winner’s single – the image being sold to the public was a young woman who had confronted her issues, begun to work through them in rehab, and come out the other side stronger than ever.
What Simply Complicated reveals is that this was not the case whatsoever. “She was on air promoting this new way of life,” manager Phil McIntyre recalled. “I was like, ‘You’re so full of it.'”
In fact, the real breaking point came the following year; in 2012 when she was in the midst of promoting ‘Give Your Heart A Break’, a sweet, endearing pop song that enjoyed strong chart success and appeared to cement Lovato’s evolution from Disney poppet into fully-fledged popstar. When she performed it on American Idol, she was hungover, and – in Lovato’s words – “didn’t care” about her career.
“At that moment, I fully intended to drop her,” McIntyre revealed.
Just months later, she joined The X Factor USA as a judge, and was living in a sober facility – only then, it seems, finally taking sobriety seriously.
This level of intimacy is what makes Simply Complicated such a riveting watch. Popstars routinely sell an image of themselves with perfect, glamorous lives – and a no-holes-barred account of the accompanying darkness is not only refreshing but, let’s be honest, important.
But this isn’t all straight-faced seriousness: the doc also delivers on fun. Lovato is seen in her element in the recording studio, hanging out with friends, preparing for dates, and – in one ultra-endearing moment – accidentally turning the music off at an emo-themed club night.
It’s not news that Lovato has one of the best voices of her generation, and she has the hits to back her up: Cool For The Summer and Heart Attack are among the best pop songs of the decade.
But here she proves what her fans have known all along: that she’s also a three-dimensional, flawed, funny, thoughtful, and real human being.
A must-watch for anyone with even the slightest passing interest in celebrity culture.
Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated is streaming on YouTube now. Watch above.
Daily Express :: Entertainment Feed
