In this episode, I sit down with my good friend Demi Lovato to talk about how she got her start in the entertainment industry. We talk about what it's like being an entertainer, what it s like being in the public eye, and how she balances it all with being a wife and a mom. We also talk about her love of lemonade and her love for all things lemonade. I hope you enjoy this episode and that it gives you a little bit of insight into who Demi is and what she does to keep up with all of the demands of being a star in show business. Thank you so much to Demi for being on the podcast and for being a part of this podcast. I really appreciate it and I can't wait for you to listen to it! xoxo - Caitlyn & Jordan Music: by SZA Produced and Edited by and . is a production of Gimlet Media. We are working on transcribing this episode so we can make better episodes and make them more digestible for our listeners. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and subscribe to our other episodes! and spread the word to your friends about what you heard on the pod! Thanks so much for listening and supporting us! XOXO, Caitlyn and Jordan xx - The Lovato Crew! Caitlyn, Jordan, Amy, and Demi, Sarah Sarah, Sarah, and Sarah, Margo, ( ) & Sarah, Amy and Sarah ( ) ( ) . Sarah & Sarah ( , . . Sara ( ) & Sara ( . ) , Sarah ( ). Sarah ( . ) (Sandra ( ) , ) (Sue, , and Sara ( ), and Sara, . ) (Sarah ( ) - (Sarah, ) . (Sydney) (Kristen, ), And Sarah ( ), . ( ) and Sarah's ( ) ! ( , (Sandy, (Cara, ). ) & Sarah's Dad ( ) ... , & Sara's (Sara ( ) ) ( ) , and Sarah s ( ) etc. ( ) And Sarah's Mom ( ) AND Sarah (?) (Alyssa ( ) !! ) and Sara's Dad, ... etc.)
00:00:30.000Yeah, we moved to having these metal cups and have water in these things.
00:00:35.000Oh, I didn't even know these were metal.
00:00:36.000Yeah, because we used to bring bottles of water in here, those plastic bottles, and after a while you're like, what am I doing?
00:00:43.000I had an investment in a water company one time and I actually ended up selling the investment because I don't want to promote all the plastic.
00:00:54.000You know, they can make plastic out of other stuff.
00:00:57.000They can make biodegradable plastic out of hemp and they could be making water bottles out of stuff that would naturally biodegrade in the earth.
00:01:49.000I feel like I would just be the person that goes to their room and starts talking to themselves and defeats the whole purpose of being there because I just want to...
00:01:58.000If you tell me not to do something, I'm going to go do it.
00:02:46.000My best friend that I brought out here, her name's Susie, and I brought her on this trip.
00:02:52.000And just like, for instance, one day I was at home and I had been doing stuff all day, you know, interviews and photo shoots and this and that, and I walked in the house and she was like, So you've been doing rockstar shit all day.
00:06:51.000He used to be on Hannah Montana and this was in Dallas.
00:06:54.000And he came out to Dallas to do this autograph signing and I just like went to show support and see my friend that's been in LA for a while.
00:07:02.000And somebody there heard or saw me and she just screamed.
00:07:07.000And I was like, oh my god, what's happening?
00:08:11.000And so they had done their research and they knew what I looked like and they just screamed.
00:08:17.000Do you feel like that was like a shift in the way you thought about show business when you realized that you were now someone that if people saw you, they would scream?
00:08:28.000Did it become a different thing to you?
00:08:48.000You know, and then at concerts, it makes sense, you know, and like, you're singing and that's what people do at concerts, they scream.
00:08:55.000But I think like, you know, in the lobby of a hotel in Texas, it's just a little alarming.
00:09:02.000When was the first time you did a concert?
00:09:05.000Um, I've, I mean, I did performances, um, growing up.
00:09:10.000So, like, I performed, I did, like, this military base tour when I was, like, 12. And I promoted this DVD that I was on, that had a music video on it.
00:09:23.000It was, like, this workout, I don't know, it's a long story.
00:09:25.000But I went to military bases and I did some performances, but I think my first actual concert of my own was that summer.
00:09:34.000I was 15, and it was at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, and it was an amusement park.
00:10:18.000The perils of becoming famous when you're young are well known.
00:10:25.000There's a small handful of people that have made it through unscathed.
00:10:29.000It's a weird way to grow up because everybody else grows up trying to prove their worth or trying to find their place in life and trying to get people to understand who they are.
00:10:46.000You grow up where basically most people who run into you know who you are before you knew who they are.
00:10:54.000And they're already like kind of freaked out that you're there and they'll do anything for you.
00:11:00.000They want to see you and they want to see you perform.
00:11:02.000They just want to see you sing and talk.
00:12:05.000It's not that I ever looked at the industry as...
00:12:13.000This kind of weird burden on my teenage years or whatever like yes it is weird in hindsight but I looked at it as it actually kind of saved my life at times because it gave me something to live for and I knew that if I stayed in Texas that I wouldn't make it out alive.
00:14:27.000But they were coming at me with words that scarred me emotionally for years to come and ended up, you know, scarring me for the rest of my life.
00:14:39.000And I kept saying to people who didn't understand cyberbullying, like, I wish that someone had just hit me and gotten it over with because at least I wouldn't have to live with those words that they said to me for years.
00:14:51.000And that's what was the hardest part, was the emotional trauma of all of it, which made it hard to meet fans my age because I had just been bullied three years before by people my age.
00:15:07.000Excited to meet them, but at the same time, I knew what they were capable of.
00:15:10.000So I had this weird battle in my head every time I'd meet someone my age of like, I'm so appreciative of you, but I'm also terrified of what you're capable of.
00:16:14.000That was really my first taste of activism work, was...
00:16:17.000Being an advocate for anti-bullying and I remember I like decided to start talking about it and I felt like I felt some purpose and All of a sudden my career wasn't about my talent anymore.
00:17:57.000She was so thrown off that I even remembered who she was after becoming famous and a celebrity that she wasn't interested in talking about What had happened when I was 12, or when we were 12. What did she want to talk about?
00:19:57.000No, it actually made me more upset because I was like...
00:20:02.000How does someone who literally altered the course of my life, not that I'm blaming her for my eating disorder, I would have probably developed one anyways because my mother had one.
00:20:14.000And so I was looking at negative food behaviors.
00:21:21.000But I think that that is a thing where when people, regular folks hear someone who's maybe an actor talking about, you know, how he wants to vote for Joe Biden.
00:21:32.000And you're like, hey man, just shut the fuck up.
00:21:34.000Just go be Captain America or whatever you do.
00:21:40.000Go be some whatever you are in some television show or some movie.
00:21:44.000Don't lecture folks about politics when you probably barely know what you're talking about and you're only doing it to suck up to the liberal people in Hollywood that you think they're going to give you movie roles.
00:21:55.000But in the defense of that, I will say that like...
00:21:59.000Pretty much everyone in Hollywood, I guess, is...
00:24:55.000No, it's smart because you're kind of self-checking.
00:24:58.000But you could also look at it this way, that what you're doing is doing your best work, and your best work, just your best singing and putting together songs and performances, has a massive positive impact on your fans.
00:25:12.000I mean, you have to think about it, not just in terms of you getting all the love and adulation that you do get, and that you would be a narcissist, but you're doing your best work.
00:25:22.000And when you do your best work, and you have Thousands and thousands of screaming fans having the best time because of what you've done.
00:25:31.000Because of the work that you put in and the performance that you put out.
00:25:34.000When they're there watching it and experiencing it, they're having the time of their life.
00:25:55.000You probably experienced this, but I can't go into a restaurant and see a cell phone pop up in my direction without thinking someone's taking a picture.
00:28:31.000Let's get this kid to join the military when they're young.
00:28:34.000Let's get them to do, you know, fucking boot camp or something.
00:28:37.000Like, I don't know what you would do to a child star to take them and make them grounded when they know that they can walk on stage and 18,000 people go bananas as soon as they see them.
00:30:29.000I actually was not doing so well on a trip to Bali and my security guard knew her and invited her along and when I was there we worked together and she told me things that nobody knew.
00:32:04.000It was more complicated than that because after being sober for six years, I couldn't understand why the last two years of my sobriety I had a raging eating disorder.
00:32:18.000Like, if I'm so good spiritually and spiritually fit and all the things, why am I still throwing up?
00:33:04.000I guess because to them I wasn't underweight or I don't know but it was really bad and I was miserable and so I asked them I asked them for help,
00:33:19.000and when I didn't get the help I needed, I just stayed miserable for like six months.
00:33:23.000And after that six months, when I said, hey guys, guess what?
00:33:28.000I'm still miserable and I need help, or I'm gonna pick up.
00:33:31.000And I didn't get the help I needed, I picked up.
00:33:34.000That's what you guys call doing drugs again?
00:33:57.000This is the same healer that like also told me a year ago, right after I performed on the Super Bowl and Grammys, she was like, your career is gonna slow down a lot.
00:34:09.000And I was like, what are you talking about?
00:34:11.000I just teared up, teed up my career comeback this year.
00:34:16.000And she was like, everyone's going to slow down, but don't worry.
00:35:55.000I wanted it so bad, and I made it happen.
00:35:57.000But what about that guy that's, you know, working at the fucking...
00:36:00.000Chuck E. Cheese right now, who also had the same dreams, who also had the pictures on his wall, who also lip-synced to songs and wanted to be in a band so bad.
00:36:12.000I think for everyone who becomes successful at anything, you obsess on that thing, you think about that thing all the time, and when you do make it and they interview you, everyone wants to pretend there's some sort of magic involved in what they've created and what they've done.
00:36:41.000There's people that have personalities that are suited to whatever endeavor they pursue, whether it's athletics or whether it's art, whether it's literature, whatever it is that you excel at.
00:36:52.000You can decide that it was manifest, that your mind created it.
00:36:57.000That you were destined to do this, and you're destined to help the world and change the world.
00:37:02.000But I think we attach meaning to things to try to find order in chaos.
00:37:07.000And I think that if you just had a grand, if you had an enormous sample group of all the people that wanted the same things that you have, or all the people that wanted the same things that, you know, pick a person.
00:38:36.000Listening to your intuition and honing in that ability and trying to Kind of like use what your body tells you and your intuition and your gut to make choices that will have the best outcome for your life.
00:38:53.000And that's what mainly I mean by intuition.
00:38:56.000Not like I don't need to know the tickets on a lottery ticket or the numbers on a lottery ticket.
00:39:02.000I just like if I want something, I'm going to continue to work hard to get it, but I'm also going to manifest it.
00:39:08.000And I think there's also intuition with people, right?
00:39:12.000Like you have good feelings about people.
00:39:14.000Like you meet people and you're like, I think you're going to be my friend.
00:39:33.000You can't say, oh, well, they have 20 points of that.
00:39:36.000You don't know what it is, but some people have a thing.
00:39:39.000And that's a part of being a human being is reading people's energy.
00:39:44.000But I think the problem is some people make a bigger deal out of that than it really is and then they try to pretend that they have special abilities and they take advantage of people who are looking for people that have special abilities.
00:40:05.000Navigates from a place of ego cannot be trusted.
00:40:08.000I think that if you are If you meet a healer that is all about posting things on their Instagram or getting clout or whatever it is, I don't trust those healers.
00:40:20.000But if you say some shit to me that really connects, and on top of that, you're not looking for anything from me, I don't feel like you have another agenda, then I can get on board with trusting you.
00:42:08.000But if spirituality is essentially energy, even when you're manifesting things, it's like if you're putting positive energy towards something, if you are able to detect the drop of someone's energy,
00:42:25.000isn't that still in alignment with all of these things, you know?
00:42:30.000Sort of, but I think there's a lot of physical characteristics that come with the drop of someone's energy.
00:42:34.000There's a certain, like, they breathe a little heavier.
00:43:05.000And it sounds better if it's a coincidence, right?
00:43:07.000Then you sound smart and you sound like you diminish any possibility that there's some strange connection that people share with each other.
00:43:18.000It's almost weird enough where I'm willing to entertain the possibility that something else is going on.
00:43:23.000Because sometimes I'll get a text message from somebody I haven't talked to in a long fucking time, and then I'm just thinking about them, and I'm like, how does this dude know that I'm thinking about him?
00:43:32.000Or they'll call you, or they'll send you an email.
00:43:46.000Go to different level, you can achieve different levels of psychic ability through meditation.
00:43:54.000And through, like, I found that when I go inward, and I focus on my consciousness, that I'm able to either see things or weird things happen.
00:44:06.000Like, Meditation helps me in so many ways.
00:44:12.000Well, meditation allows you to cut back on a lot of the chatter.
00:44:16.000A lot of the chatter that's going on in your head.
00:44:32.000It's cutting out the internal chatter, cutting out the negative thinking and all the fucking tornado of shit that goes on in your head all the time.
00:44:43.000You know, and the people that don't try to silence that, they wind up going off the rails.
00:44:48.000Like, you're a person who you've had your ups and downs with drugs and with, you know, with mental health, but you're here right now, rock solid!
00:45:22.000You know, that shows that you've, you know, whatever these obstacles that have been put in front of you, you've figured your way over them or around them or you've gone through them.
00:45:31.000You know, you're doing the right stuff.
00:45:49.000And one friend whose parents ripped him off, he was a child actor and he was famous when he was really young and he found out as he was a grown adult that his parents had stolen millions of dollars from him.
00:46:00.000And these are still his mom and his dad.
00:52:07.000And I learned from that in the beginning.
00:52:10.000I think my manager at the time had managed the Jonas Brothers and didn't realize when he took on me as a solo artist that I would need more time to recover.
00:52:20.000Because you know when you're managing three guys, you're not factoring in two hours of hair and makeup.
00:52:28.000A full show of performance by yourself.
00:52:30.000You can't rely on your brother if you're tired.
00:53:19.000Sleeping heals my voice like No other.
00:53:23.000So hot tea, sleep, water, and then I don't know what works now, to be honest, because I'm in a different place than I was the last time I toured in 2018. How so?
00:53:35.000Well, 2018, I went on a North American tour and then a world tour.
00:53:42.000And the North American tour, I was sober, but bulimic.
00:53:48.000Then when I went on the world tour, I wasn't sober, but I wasn't bulimic anymore.
00:55:06.000When you first started recognizing that you were using, like, and you were using probably to try to mitigate some of the pressures of fame and all the wildness of your life.
00:55:17.000The first time I ever realized I had a problem was when I was 18. And it was Coke.
00:55:58.000Because I wasn't sleeping from the coke and needed to go to sleep at night.
00:56:05.000So I would take a Xanax, but then I would stay up.
00:56:08.000And then I ended up liking the effects of both of them at the same time.
00:56:11.000I used to always think of Xanax as this thing that people did, just no big deal.
00:56:17.000Just, oh, you take a Xanax, you relax, take a Xanax, have a glass of wine, relax.
00:56:21.000I had no idea how difficult those things were to kick until two things.
00:56:28.000One, my friend Jordan Peterson got off of it and it took him like a year and he was in hell.
00:56:34.000And then talking to another friend, Hamilton Morris, who is a real chemist.
00:56:40.000It really understands the actual mechanisms of what these drugs do to your mind and your body and why it's so difficult to get off of them.
00:56:49.000But benzodiazepines, Xanax and those type of drugs, those anti-depressants or anti-anxiety rather, those medications are some of the most difficult drugs to get off of.
00:56:59.000Way more difficult even for many people than heroin.
00:57:03.000Yeah, so in my experience, when I have withdrawn from heroin, I'm not worried necessarily about what's going to happen to me physically.
00:57:16.000When I have had to come off of Xanax in the past, I've had to talk to a doctor about it, get on a prescription to get off of it.
00:57:25.000It's a whole thing because people don't realize that heroin...
00:57:32.000I don't know if anyone has died of a heroin withdrawal, but it's not typical for people to die from heroin withdrawals.
00:57:39.000It's typically alcohol and benzodiazepines.
00:57:56.000The other thing that Hamilton was explaining is that it changes your baseline, that when you get on these things and it does alleviate some of your anxiety, but then when you get off of them, it actually accentuates your anxiety.
00:58:09.000So your anxiety, whatever you had before, is now elevated.
00:58:12.000So it becomes more difficult to get off of them because you needed them because you were trying to alleviate your anxiety.
00:58:19.000Now you get off of them and you're more anxious than you've ever been before.
00:59:55.000And did the benzos, did the Xanax, did it help you?
01:00:01.000I would imagine like who you are now, you're much more accustomed to the fame and the life and you're kind of like settling into it.
01:00:11.000But I would imagine that being 17, 18, 19, it was probably unbearable at times because it's probably so insane.
01:00:19.000The most insane thing to me that I could never wrap my head around was, like, I was a minor being followed by paparazzi, which are grown men.
01:00:33.000And so here I am, 16, 17 years old, going to dinner at Bob's Burgers with my friends and paparazzi's there.
01:00:43.000But it was perfectly legal because they had a camera.
01:00:49.000Where does that make sense for a minor to be followed by grown men, but it's okay because they have a camera?
01:00:55.000I think the idea is that once you're famous, once you're in a media form, whether it's television or movies, that you're free game.
01:01:11.000And I think there's probably Disney stars that would get mad at me for saying that, that might be under 18. Well, they can consent to having their photos taken.
01:05:22.000Dealers that are hanging out with rock stars and partying with them.
01:05:26.000I think it's weirder to take advantage of people that don't have money and are dealers to regular people on the street.
01:05:32.000I'm not saying that it's good to take advantage of anybody, but I'm saying I can see the incentive of wanting to go after a celebrity because they have a lot of money.
01:05:40.000It's like, how do you go after somebody that's already on the street and homeless and not making anything?
01:05:49.000I see the incentive to go after someone with money.
01:05:52.000I see what you're saying, but I think you're looking at it in a different way than I am because you're looking at it like they're going after you.
01:06:10.000And they're just taking advantage of the fact that it's like if they didn't exist, if they were never born, that homeless person is still going to do meth.
01:09:40.000A run will cure you of most of what ails you.
01:09:43.000There's a lot of things that you can do where you feel like you're overwhelmed with anxiety or thoughts or just so many...
01:09:56.000So much pressure and the weirdness of life.
01:09:58.000It sounds so simplistic, but a really brutal workout oftentimes will alleviate most of those feelings to the point where if you could take in a pill form what it feels like to complete a brutal 90-minute kettlebell workout and how you feel after it's over...
01:10:17.000In terms of your relationship to anxiety and your relationship to stress and pressure, that pill would be so popular.
01:10:53.000Say it's 3 in the afternoon if I'm stressed because the second I walk into the gym, I'm now seeing...
01:11:02.000If I'm walking into a regular gym at Unbreakable, they don't have weight loss shit on the walls.
01:11:08.000But if you walk into a normal gym, if a woman or anybody has had an eating disorder or deals with the effects of diet culture and has dealt with all the shame that comes with that, that isn't the most therapeutic way for someone.
01:11:30.000You're right, but for some people, a workout isn't as beneficial because they might deal with the crippling shame and anxiety of the diet culture that's put in our faces every day, you know?
01:11:53.000Like, Unbreakable doesn't have mirrors, which is why I really found comfort in And like working out there because I didn't I wasn't catching the corner of my eye thinking I need to work on this or I need to strengthen this.
01:12:09.000It's about making myself feel better, which is what you were talking about.
01:12:13.000But I think when like it's easy people can get easily distracted and it becomes more stressful for them to step foot in those environments than it is to maybe go on a walk.
01:12:32.000That you can just watch someone do a video.
01:12:34.000Or if you have a really good coach or a trainer that can come over and put you through a video where you don't have to stare at some weight loss advertisement.
01:12:54.000And so I appreciate you being able to see that.
01:12:58.000And I think for me, like, when I really want to get in a good workout, now, like, because of COVID, it used to be jujitsu, but, you know, now it's going on a hike.
01:13:11.000Or it's getting outside, being outdoors, anything like that.
01:18:06.000Yeah, I would take a meeting, maybe eat some food, go to a second workout, which was probably either like if I did jits in the morning, I'd do striking at lunch or vice versa.
01:18:19.000And then I'd do weight training as my third workout.
01:18:23.000And after I would eat and do recovery, like the Norma Tech pants, the IV. I was training like a fighter at one point.
01:19:49.000Well, one of the things that does happen to people when they develop addictions is they try to replace that negative addiction with a positive addiction.
01:21:05.000Were you taking supplements as well and doing the whole deal?
01:21:09.000I never got super big into supplements, just like vitamins, but nothing.
01:21:16.000Because my team had known about my eating disorder, for some reason, they were totally fine with me working out three times a day, but didn't want me to take supplements.
01:22:36.000I also just stopped caring about my weight, which is like...
01:22:40.000I know for someone in the fitness world, it's probably hard for you to hear, but I think I just spent so many years stressing about it that in order to really find a balance with my health and my body, I had to legalize all the foods that I had Not kept down for however many years.
01:23:04.000I didn't eat pasta or pizza or cheeseburgers for years.
01:23:53.000Whether it's eating disorders or gambling disorders or whatever, the human mind is very strange in these patterns that it gets locked into that it just wants to repeat over and over and over again.
01:24:05.000So it sounds to me like what you're doing is developing a healthy relationship with food.
01:24:12.000I had to take a different approach because I was never introduced to food in a healthy way.
01:24:18.000My mom had an eating disorder my whole life until I went to treatment when I was 18. She ended up going to treatment three months after I got out.
01:24:29.000But she was 80 pounds when I was three years old.
01:24:34.000Yeah, when her and my dad went through my divorce, she was very, very little.
01:24:38.000And so that's what my role model of food was.
01:25:22.000She's super petite, and that's not invalidating what she went through at all, but she is a little firecracker, I call her, because she's this ginger, used to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, just the most upbeat,
01:25:57.000She came over and like, I remember I went upstairs to go get a massage and in the middle of my massage, which was like an hour later, I hear her, like, finally leaving.
01:26:07.000She, like, stayed and hung out with my cousin and my friend.
01:26:10.000And it was just cute because, like, I wasn't even down there anymore, but she...
01:26:15.000She felt comfortable just hanging out at your house.
01:26:52.000He's a famous you looked at me so I'm gonna say you don't he's a famous addiction specialist pretty brilliant guy I've listened to him talk multiple times and one of the things that he says about addiction is that almost all of it has roots in childhood trauma And I watched your YouTube thing and the thing that struck me the most was,
01:27:18.000well it was a lot, I shouldn't even say the most, but one of the things that struck me pretty hard was your relationship with your dad and that your dad died alone and you don't even know what day he died and they found him.
01:27:31.000And just the relationship that he had with your mom and just you having to grow up with that in your head that this is your dad and that this this person who is abusive to your mom and who died alone and you have this like people want relationships with their parents they want good relationships with their parents everybody does and when you have that like I mean it had to be a big part Just besides all the fame and all the chaos that comes along with that,
01:28:04.000And I think that set me up for relationship issues later down the road.
01:28:12.000It was hard growing up because my mom didn't ever want to like not have me be raised without my father, but at the same time he was so abusive to her that She couldn't be around him.
01:29:24.000And so there was a lot at a young age that I think I didn't know how to process, didn't know how to comprehend and...
01:29:35.000You know, unfortunately, I had to go through a lot to learn where all these roots have stemmed from.
01:29:43.000But because I've gone through all of that, I've been able to kind of identify the problem and reprogram my narrative into what I believe is true today, not what I believed was true 15,
01:32:22.000When did you realize you were whatever you want to call it?
01:32:26.000Well, I think that's a loaded question because I saw Cruel Intentions when I was a kid and saw Sarah Michelle Gellar and what's-her-face kiss?
01:33:00.000Do you think people also have a weird thing about it because they saw you when you were young?
01:33:05.000You were this young girl and this teen star and now they think of you as being whether you're gay or whether you're gender fluid or sexually fluid, whatever you are.
01:33:49.000But when she came out, I remember there was some discussion amongst moms, like whether or not, you know, is this, are you okay with this?
01:33:57.000Like your daughter's, you know, likes JoJo Siwa, but now she's talking about maybe being gay and like, it's weird that the expectations that people have on folks, like, look, Gay adults used to be gay kids.
01:35:14.000I think I've always had a hard time working with PR. Because I have such a strong opinion and such strong boundaries that if I feel like a boundary is being crossed in an interview, I don't want to come off as an asshole,
01:35:31.000but I feel obligated to stand up for myself.
01:35:55.000And so I... But it's hard because, you know, some of the people that are doing the interviews are writing an article about you in a magazine that you've read for years and years and years.
01:36:17.000I mean, it's really difficult for a lot of people to do, but I think what...
01:36:22.000Stars and and athletes even all kind of performers where people are paying attention to them What they need to do is take back that narrative and figure out a way to speak for themselves and whether it's through their own podcast or You know a blog or you know if they just feel like writing their thoughts Or just making videos and putting them up on YouTube about how they really feel about things and it's a great exercise too for them because Yeah.
01:37:07.000I don't think I think about it that way.
01:37:11.000So when someone else is deciding who you are or what you think or how you behave just by virtue of a bunch of weird gotcha questions and they're trying to make some article about you, that's not representative of who you are.
01:37:41.000Because you're allowed to be wrong or to make mistakes or to say something where maybe you were a little rude because someone was rude to you.
01:38:02.000Yes, that's who I am, and that's what I think in that moment.
01:38:06.000But because I do have a platform, and you have a platform too, if we say something, that gets cemented into the internet forever.
01:38:16.000And so if we even thought 20 minutes ago something that we don't agree with 20 minutes later, people hold that belief to our identity as who we are.
01:39:50.000I have never had a drug or an alcohol addiction.
01:39:53.000I've never had that kind of a compulsion, so I don't know.
01:39:56.000But what I read about you is that you think of yourself now as California sober.
01:40:03.000Please tell me what the fuck California sober is.
01:40:06.000I saw the smile on your face start to form and it just made me so happy.
01:40:12.000Part of my process now is not defining the parameters publicly because I don't feel like it's anybody's business but me and my treatment team.
01:40:29.000It's a term that a lot of people use to identify this Path of moderation with the help of some green plants.
01:40:51.000Yeah, but it's such a loaded subject that even bringing it up, you have to kind of guard yourself from the way other people are going to perceive what you're doing, right?
01:42:10.000I think there's also just a sense of security in knowing that That even if I'm having a bad night and I turn to that, that's not going to kill me.
01:42:23.000I've always found that when people think that marijuana is an escape, I mean I guess it can be for some people, but for me it's been the opposite of an escape.
01:43:40.000Weed was able to help me slow down and appreciate the instrument that I am.
01:43:45.000And that was a revelation that I had as an artist that I'd never had before because I'd always just thought that my voice comes from me and not really appreciating myself as an instrument.
01:52:09.000Have you looked into, there's some therapies that they're doing with people with neurological damage where they're using IV stem cells.
01:52:16.000IV stem cells are doing it in Panama and in Colombia and a few other places where they can't, they're doing some shit they can't really do in the United States.
01:52:26.000No, but I will definitely look into that.
01:52:49.000He would send them down to Panama to get all these stem cell treatments.
01:52:52.000And, you know, his thought is like, there's thoughts where people are like, hey, you know, you don't really know what's the negative repercussions.
01:54:12.000I like kind of feel like I want to cry right now because like I didn't think there was there might listen there's always new things coming down the horizon you know I just literally like had such radical acceptance over the fact that this is that's it forever yeah that I was just kind of like okay and like I'm gonna keep fighting well more power to you that you're able to do that you it might really be what you see for the rest of your life this might be it but yeah who knows But who knows?
01:54:40.000I never thought that there would be a possibility of anything else.
01:56:24.000This experience that you had, you had a heart attack, you had strokes, you have this vision issue that's going to exist for the rest of your life.
01:56:36.000So I'm sure everyone around you then was like, hey, you got to stay the fuck away from all drugs forever.
01:59:03.000And my treatment team said, okay, like, we'll support you and stand by you.
01:59:08.000What do you need from us that will help?
01:59:10.000And it was at that point that, like, I started getting this thing called the Vivitrol shot, which is...
01:59:16.000A shot that blocks all the opiate receptors in your brain.
01:59:24.000Honestly, even if I were to get in a bad injury and go to the hospital, I couldn't even get opiates in a hospital because my body will reject them so much it goes into withdrawals immediately.
02:00:46.000Yeah, if that's what makes you happy, then like own your truth and live it, you know?
02:00:51.000So I'm still curious as to like what about weed made you want to even introduce it into your life after working so hard to be sober and having this horrible experience with overdosing?
02:01:09.000I often say, and this is really hard for people to hear sometimes, but I think that drugs saved my life at times because had I not had something to medicate with, I wouldn't be here.
02:01:52.000And I got to this place where I kept thinking, If I pick up, you know, that term, I had been told so many times by people in recovery or treatment team,
02:02:07.000whatever, not this treatment team, but a different one, that if I picked up that I would die.
02:02:13.000And I thought to myself, what kind of life...
02:02:49.000And so I tried it and it wasn't so bad and I began to appreciate what it could do for me.
02:02:58.000It stopped me from going to the other things.
02:03:01.000A lot of people say that weed is a gateway drug, but what people don't know is that it can also be a drug that can provide a little bit of relief for people who feel like when they get that low, they're either going to pick up something really dark,
02:03:18.000really heavy, or Something more ominous.
02:06:20.000Like if you can say whenever you are at right now, like wherever you are in life, if you can say, I'm doing better than I've ever done before.
02:06:56.000My case manager today, like, came into my life and kind of reshaped my whole thinking.
02:07:02.000I remember I sat down with him, and he talks about this in my documentary, like, I sat down with him, his name is Charles, and he was like, what's wrong?
02:07:11.000And I was like, I don't want to be here.
02:08:04.000When you're always running things by people, another thing that's happening when you're doing that is you're trying to find out what you should and shouldn't do in terms of how other people feel like you should behave.
02:08:18.000Other people feel like what's going to be best for your career, what's going to be best for your image.
02:08:27.000It's very constricting and you compromise yourself.
02:08:32.000And you make yourself way less interesting.
02:08:38.000Whoever you really are never gets to grow because you're always stifling it and you're always squashing it and you're trying to fit it into this box.
02:08:46.000And the box that you're fitting into is the box that exists in a million different forms already.
02:09:24.000Maybe I wouldn't have ended up overdosing because I felt like...
02:09:28.000Well, there was a point where I thought to myself, they're not listening to me.
02:09:33.000I'm asking for help, and I just felt like, I don't know, I just felt like maybe things would be different.
02:09:40.000Do you think that sometimes help for a person like you means they have to kind of step in and tell you what to do, and they don't want to, and they're scared of you?
02:09:59.000To really step in and intervene in someone's addiction and problems and whatever they're going through in their life, whether it's bulimia or whatever, you've got to put your foot down and you've got to tell them this is what we're going to do.
02:10:11.000A lot of people probably don't want to put themselves into that position with you.
02:10:45.000The only reason why it's low calorie is because they put so much air in it that you think you're eating a pint of ice cream, but you're only eating like this much.
02:11:00.000So I think that like at some point, yes, but I think at some point in the future, like people might think that because I'm making my own choices, but it hasn't.
02:11:12.000I have never consistently made my own choices for a solid amount of time.
02:12:14.000And I think knowing ahead of time that that was not ever going to work with personal relationships, like, I didn't ever really open myself up so that people could come to me and ask me for money.
02:14:52.000Even if you're not right, you'll feel sure about it.
02:14:57.000Has there ever been a time where you are smoking weed after your recovery from this horrible overdose where you're like, why am I doing this?
02:15:07.000Maybe I shouldn't even be smoking weed.
02:15:10.000There's been times where I've thought, yeah, I should be 100% sober, but when I ask myself what is the reasoning behind that, It's not realistic for me to look at my life and think for the rest of my life I'm never going to ingest some substance.
02:15:34.000Whether it's at the dentist getting work done or You know, like, it's just not...
02:15:41.000I don't know what's gonna happen in my life.
02:15:43.000And I once had somebody tell me, like, at my first time in rehab, like, they were like, I always turn down pain medication.
02:16:38.000That's a real problem with artists because you're trying to put something out and the way to get something really good is you have to be self-critical and because of that it can kind of get away from you and then nothing's good enough and then you know you're striving for perfection you can never achieve it no matter what you're unhappy and people get in these crazy mental loops when it comes to creating things and it can be very self-destructive it's hard to get out I think it's self-destructive when that's the
02:17:49.000And I think that's a common belief that a lot of child stars have is that When you attach your purpose to your career at such a young age, you don't know any different when you get older.
02:18:05.000And then it stops fulfilling you and you're like, why isn't it working?
02:18:09.000So you start filling it up with other things.
02:19:04.000But it seems like you're consciously moving in the direction of improving your life and figuring it out.
02:19:13.000When you're doing that, when you're constantly moving in the direction of figuring it out and trial and error, but always moving towards living a better life, living a more fulfilled life, then you're on the right path.
02:22:47.000It always bothered me because I've only stepped on an actual red carpet, like maybe twice, and then all the rest of the times it was an actual red carpet, it like didn't meet the stature of the event.
02:24:09.000I know I got a lot of work to do, just like any other human on this planet.
02:24:13.000But, like, I'm excited for the challenge, you know?
02:24:17.000What is it like having this YouTube original documentary out where it's just so much of your life and your pain and so, I mean, it's so personal.
02:24:28.000And yet you're like, everybody, look at my life.
02:26:20.000For someone like me who's always tried to please other people by being what they want me to be, whether it was a sexy pop star in a leotard or engaged to a dude, like, I had to speak my truth and tell the world,
02:26:37.000hey, my truth isn't going to be what you want it to be.
02:26:43.000I'm chopping my hair off because it feels right to me.
02:26:46.000A lot of my fans want me to have long hair.
02:27:53.000Like, no matter what you guys tell me, I'm gonna do what feels right to me.
02:27:57.000And if that means growing my hair out at some point, fine.
02:28:00.000If that means being with a dude at some point, fine.
02:28:02.000If that means being completely sober one day, fine.
02:28:05.000But in this moment, I'm living my truth for me and not for anyone else.
02:28:09.000And that's something that I think every celebrity in the public eye deserves to feel because Or at least child stars.
02:28:22.000When you grow up being told what to become by publicists, by agents, by managers, you don't really find autonomy in decision making in your life.