Lovato, 21, gave Access Hollywood a very candid interview on Dec. 10 in which she revealed some shocking details about her troubled past.
“I couldn’t go 30 minutes to an hour without cocaine, and I would bring it on airplanes,” the former Disney star admitted on the show. “I would smuggle it basically and just wait until everyone in first class would go to sleep, and I would do it right there. I’d sneak to the bathroom, and I’d do it. That’s how difficult it got and that was even with somebody [with me]. I had a sober companion, somebody who was watching me 24/7 and living with me [and] I was able to hide it from them as well.”
Lovato checked into rehab in October 2010, withdrawing from the Jonas Brothers Live in Concert tour and leaving her Disney Channel show, Sonny With a Chance. At the time she cited “physical and emotional issues,” but in this new interview, Lovato reveals the exact moment when she realized she’d hit rock bottom.
“I was going to the airport, and I had a Sprite bottle just filled with vodka,” she continued. “It was just nine in the morning, and I was throwing up in the car and this was just to get on a plane to go back to LA to the sober living house that I was staying at. When I hit that moment I was like, ‘It’s no longer fun when you’re doing it alone.'”
The “Neon Lights” singer didn’t just struggle with alcohol and drug abuse. She’s also been very upfront about her eating disorder, and continued to talk about her difficult journey with Access Hollywood.
“It was always there, but then I just acted on it at around 8 or 9 years old,” she said. “I started overeating, compulsively overeating. I would bake cookies and then eat the whole pan. I went from doing that to being unhappy with my body. I went to just completely starving myself and that turned into throwing up and starving myself and it was just this crazy battle going on inside of me. It got really difficult [and] I would throw up, and it would just be blood and it was something that I realized if I don’t stop this, I am going to die.”