“Dancing with the Devil” is a four-part docuseries covering the singer’s 2018 overdose, and episodes one and two premiered on March 23.
Each episode is around 20 minutes long and leaves off on a cliff hanger each time. Lovato was sober for six years before she relapsed with drugs and alcohol in April of 2018. The docu-series captures the timeline of Lovato’s 2018 overdose and shows emotional and raw moments in her life.
Lovato was originally filming a documentary for her 2018 tour but scrapped that documentary after her overdose. She appeared happy, joyful and tuned in during the tour and filming time. But after the overdose, filming was halted. Lovato and her crew began filming this new documentary when she had taken enough time away from filming and was ready to come back with a fresh start and a new meaning.
Episodes one and two of “Dancing with the Devil” starts with covering the time leading up to her overdose. Lovato began using drugs again before her “Tell Me You Love Me” tour, and then stopped using when she started her shows. After her tour had finished, she picked up where she left off and began using once again. Lovato relapsed with drugs and alcohol in April of 2018, which started with her buying a bottle of red wine on her way home. Lovato hid her drug use from her team, family and friends.
On a trip to Bali, Lovato wrote her single “Sober” where in the lyrics she reveals that she had been using again. The song was released on June 21, 2018 where the whole world and her family, friends, and team learned that she had relapsed. Lovato admits in the docu-series that she manipulated the people around her into believing that she was sober and hid everything she was doing from them.
Two weeks after she began using again, Lovato was introduced to meth, heroine, and crack cocaine. On July 24, 2019, Lovato had been found alone in her bedroom passed out from an overdose.
The night before, Lovato was out that night at a party, where none of her friends knew that she was using, or that she was addicted to crack and heroin.
Around 5 a.m. on the 24, Demi had told her friends she was going to bed, but she secretly invited her dealer over. Her dealer supplied her drugs, including oxycodone that he did not tell Lovato were laced with fentanyl. The dealer had supplied her with drugs, gotten her extremely high, sexually abused her, and then left her alone and about to overdose. When Lovato was found, she was naked, and her skin was blue.
Later that morning her assistant, Jordan Jackson, was waiting on Lovato to get ready for a doctor’s appointment. Lovato had yet to exit her room or respond to Jackson’s texts, so Jackson went into Lovato’s bedroom to try and wake up her up.
Lovato was laying down, slightly propped up on her back, with vomit next to her. Her skin was a deep blue, like she had been laying there for a while alone. Jackson was unable to wake Lovato and contacted the singer’s security, and then made the call to 911.
Lovato was then taken to the hospital; she was breathing but not talking or moving. Her family and friends were bombarded with messages with thoughts of prayers, before they were informed about Lovato’s overdose.
“It was like a horror movie. They took her to the ICU, and she had a tube through her neck that pumped her blood into a machine, cleaned it, and pumped it back into her body,” Lovato’s mother, Dianna De La Garza said in the docu-series.
Lovato was put on the machine to clean out her blood and remove the fluids from the drugs, in order to stop her brain from swelling.
Lovato was legally blind when she woke up and was so blind that she couldn’t recognize her sister at her bedside. The overdose caused Lovato to have three strokes, a heart attack, multiple organ failure, and severe brain damage from the strokes. She can no longer drive herself because of the brain damage that caused her impaired vision.
“I’m really lucky to be alive, my doctors said I had five to ten more minutes. If my assistant hasn’t come in, I would not be here today,” Lovato revealed in the series.
The first half of the series included heart breaking confessionals from both of Lovato’s sisters, her mother, stepfather, team members and close friends.
Lovato shared her darkest moments and her moments of self-reflection in these two episodes. The third episode in the series comes out March 30 and will continue to tell the story of Lovato’s addictions and eating disorders. If you or a loved one need or want help with addiction, the national SAMHSA’s helpline number is 1-800-662-4357.