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Demi Lovato Reflects on Rehab and Past Eating Disorder in ‘Sonny With a Chance’ Cast Reunion
Reflecting. Demi Lovato opened up about her past rehab stints and her struggle with an eating disorder during the virtual Sonny With a Chance and So Random cast reunion on Saturday, April 25.
“I went to rehab — several times,” Demi 27, said with a laugh after costar Allisyn Snyder asked what everyone had been up to since the show came to an end in 2011. The former costars all caught up, reminisced about their time working together on the hit Disney Channel series and discussed how they’ve been passing the time in quarantine amid the global coronavirus pandemic during their Zoom chat.
Later in the video, Demi — who starred as the title character Sonny Munroe — gushed over costar Tiffany Thornton, who was a part of the Zoom reunion. “When I went away to treatment for the first time, you were my biggest inspiration coming out of it because you dealt with all of those pressures of being a woman on TV,” Demi told Tiffany, 34. “I looked at that as, ‘I wish I had that so bad.’ Yes, I probably was happier in my head with whatever I looked like at the time. But I’m so much happier now with the mentality that you have. I look back now and I’m like, ‘Man, it’s a shame that we wasted any energy thinking about what we wore on set.’”
Tiffany starred as Tawni Hart in both Sonny With a Chance and the spinoff, So Random. Other stars who participated in the reunion were Doug Brochu, Sterling Knight, Audrey Whitby, Matthew Scott Montgomery, Shayne Topp and Damien Haas.
The “Sorry Not Sorry” singer worked on the show from 2009 to 2011, and she was 19 years old when she left the show after two seasons. Her costars gushed over her as they reflected on the past, but Demi was extremely honest about the headspace she was in during her time on the show.
“I wasn’t sleeping and I was so miserable and angry too because I felt like I was being overworked,” she admitted. “When I left, you don’t expect your show to go on without you, but it did. But I couldn’t have been happier for everybody. I just wasn’t in a period of time when I was ready to be on camera again. I could not go back into that environment and there were other things that factored into it.”
Later in the video chat, Tiffany mentioned that Demi had the temperature in her dressing room set to “98 degrees every day.” The brunette beauty replied with a laugh, “I had an eating disorder and I was underweight and freezing!”
Demi continued, “I would have people over for meetings on my lunch breaks because that’s how much I worked. People would come in and I’d be covered in a blanket and people would say, ‘Why is it 80 degrees in here?’ I would be like, ‘Because I’m freezing.’ They would be like, ‘Oh my god, what’s wrong with you?’” It seems like the “Stone Cold” singer is in a better place now and can look back and laugh.
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