Demi Lovato says her team 'barricaded' her in a room so she couldn't leave and eat

Demi Lovato has claimed her team 'barricaded' her in a room to stop her from eating while she was experiencing an eating disorder.

The former Disney actor - who recently started using she/her pronouns alongside they/them - has long been open about having struggled with an eating disorder, previously sharing images of herself as she recovered and describing food as 'the biggest challenge' in her life.

In a new interview released this week, Lovato touched on the 'dangerous' way everything in her life, including her food, became controlled by people on their team.

Speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Lovato said the control 'exacerbated' her eating disorder, to the point where she 'became bulimic again'.

"From 2016 to 2018 I was dealing with that," they said.

Lovato said she wasn't allowed a phone in her hotel room in case she called room service, and there was nothing for her to eat inside. One night, she snuck out to eat before later admitting what she'd done.

They explained: "I didn't have food in my hotel room, like snacks in the mini bar, because they didn't want me to eat the snacks. Ellen talked about this on her show.

"They cleared the dressing room of all sugar before I'd get in there.

"I've never talked about this before but there was one time when I had binged and purged one night. I came clean to my team and said, 'hey this happened'."

After she spoke to her team about what had happened, Lovato recalled: "My security guard walked by my room, and was made aware that they had built, they'd like barricaded me into my hotel room.

"They'd put furniture outside of my door so that I couldn't get out, and sneak out and eat if I wanted to."

The singer said it was this 'level of controlling' over their food that made their eating disorder worse, and by 2017 they knew they needed support.

"One time I said 'I'm throwing up blood, I need to go to treatment, I need to get help'," they said. However, a member of their team allegedly responded by looking at them and saying: "You're not sick enough."

"I think that was his way of saying 'No you're not going back to treatment because that'll look bad on me'," Lovato said.

Within a year of this exchange, Lovato ended up experiencing a near-fatal overdose which she says left her with brain damage.

She recalled: "I felt trapped. I felt like I couldn't get out of this situation. And my way of blowing everything up was relapsing on drugs and alcohol."

Lovato no longer takes drugs or drinks alcohol, announcing in December they were striving to be 'sober sober' as it was 'the only way to be'.

If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article and would like to speak with someone in confidence, call the BEAT Eating Disorders helpline on 0808 801 0677. Helplines are open 365 days a year from 9am–8pm during the week, and 4pm–8pm on weekends and bank holidays. Alternatively, you can try the one-to-one webchat.