Demi Lovato Reveals They Used Stardom to Avoid Punishment as a Teen: ‘I Would Say, I Pay the Bills’

Demi Lovato revealed that they were a particularly hard teen to discipline, as the child star often used their status as family “breadwinner” to avoid punishment.

“I noticed that when I came into the spotlight at a young age, and then was the breadwinner … there wasn’t a manual for my parents to read and it say, ‘Here’s what to do to raise a child star,'” they said while speaking to Drew Barrymore on the 4D with Demi Lovato podcast.

“They didn’t get that!” Lovato continued. “So when they would try to ground me at 17, I would say, ‘I pay the bills.’ And I cringe now when I think about that attitude. But when the world is putting you on a pedestal, you kind of think that you could do no wrong. As I’ve gotten older, I see my parents just as big kids themselves.”

While Lovato broke out when starring in Disney Channel’s 2008 movie Camp Rock, they started their acting career in 2002 while playing Angela in Barney & Friends. 

Barrymore, who also grew up in the spotlight, offered her own take on Lovato’s past family tensions, guessing that it wasn’t necessarily a product of “the world and the pedestal.”

“I think it’s the parent-child dynamic that gets completely reversed,” she said. “No wonder you won’t take an order from an authority figure who’s no longer an authority figure because you’ve now reduced them down with finances and responsibilities.”

Barrymore also opened up on her past tumultuous relationship with her mother, which became very public once the child star was committed to psychiatric ward in California at just 13 years old.

“I didn’t know I was angry at my mom. I didn’t know I resented her,” Barrymore told Lovato. “I also then felt so much guilt as if my inability to make a relationship with this woman work was literally the most cruel and fucked thing I’d ever done in my life.”

“I, for 20 or 30 years, felt toxic inside that I had to keep separating myself from her to gain autonomy and a structure and boundaries…and learn everything on my own,” she added. “I realized that her and I were friends. We were not parent and child. Therefore, I had to completely relearn what [the] parent-child dynamic is. I couldn’t have a relationship with her until I figured that out for myself, and could come to her as a woman.”

Barrymore clarified that she and her mother are now in a “really good place” after their lengthy separation.

“It took me a long time and I couldn’t have a relationship with her until I figured that out for myself and could come to her as a woman — and not a damaged child and not have that baggage,” Barrymore said. “I didn’t want to carry it. I didn’t want to project that on to her, I didn’t want to feel guilty because I didn’t have this magical relationship with her.”

Watch above, via YouTube.

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