Demi Lovato Wrote Her 2013 Book In ‘a Matter of Days’: ‘I Wasn’t Being Authentic’
If there’s one thing celebrity Demi Lovato is passionate about, it’s sharing her true self. She’s publicly reflected on times when she wasn’t honest about her sobriety, or when she didn’t feel “confident” (including while working on her album, Confident). Learn what Lovato thinks about when she looks back on writing her 2013 book.
Demi Lovato is an actor and musician
Lovato is best known for her work on stage and screen. She began her career on Barney & Friends with ex-friend Selena Gomez. Both made their way to the Disney Channel, where Lovato starred in the TV movie Camp Rock and the series Sonny With a Chance. She also released music through Disney’s Hollywood Records.
But Lovato left the Disney Channel in 2010 after she went to treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. In the years since, she has opened up about her mental health, including a bipolar disorder diagnosis. Lovato has continued to act and sing, appearing in the 2020 film Eurovision and releasing songs such as “OK Not to Be OK.”
She wrote ‘Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year’
A few years after parting ways with Disney, Lovato continued to open up to her fans with her music. She also published a book, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year, full of affirmations, quotes, and stories meant to help those struggling to get by, for whatever reason.
Shortly after the book’s release, Lovato told Celebuzz that the hardest part of the process was “finding the time to sit down and write.” She explained that she didn’t have a ghostwriter, and it was “really easy” to write. But Lovato also commented on her motivation for the book, saying, “You have a deadline, and it needs to be finished!
Lovato put off writing the book
In May 2020, Lovato reshared a fan’s Instagram Story containing a quote from the book. “I love it when I say some smart sounding sh*t and it pops up online making me look prolific,” she wrote. Lovato shared another quote on her Story, adding, “True story: I wrote this book in a matter of DAYS because my lazy a** pushed it off until the last second.”
A couple of months later, she reaffirmed this fact to Bustle in a profile. And while she and others may enjoy the wisdom shared in the book, Lovato said, “it was more people-pleasing than anything.” She added that later, “I realized through all of that people-pleasing that I wasn’t being authentic.”
How she sees that time years later
In 2013, Lovato was on an upswing: She was a judge on The X-Factor; she released her fourth studio album, Demi; she even had a recurring role on Glee. But while Lovato was proud of the work she was doing, diving full-on back into Hollywood wasn’t necessarily healthy for her.
She told Bustle that the attention she got during her recovery was “fueling those patterns that I had and that were bringing me to destruction.” “I think that’s what you’re hearing when you read back that book,” Lovato continued. “I binged on recovery, where I switched my addiction from the actual addictions to the recovery.”
