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What Is The Music Documentary For?
Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil appeared on YouTube approximately 30 months after its motivating subject matter overdosed on what was likely fentanyl. The documentary traces what really happened the weeks leading up to July 23, 2018, and what the public didn’t know about 25-year-old Demi Lovato’s subsequent hospitalization. Lovato’s close circle — mother and stepfather, two sisters, manager, choreographer, attending doctor, and two close friends — each tell a different part of the story from their perspective. Lovato’s mom, Dianna De La Garza offers insight about Demi’s upbringing and where she might have learned to cope with substance. Dallas Lovato, Demi’s older sister, is open with the camera and clearly protective of her younger sister, implying, even as she spills the beans, that we don’t know her and we never will. Lovato’s doctor tells us that she had five or ten minutes to live prior to hospitalization, and that, in a moment of humorous relief, he didn’t know his patient was a pop music icon (he Googled her later).
The four-part documentary series is a cascade of revelations detailing the tour leading up to Lovato’s many relapses: first with her eating disorder, then with alcohol sobriety, and finally with drug sobriety. The series uses July 23 as its temporal fulcrum: there’s what happened before the overdose and what happened after, with just a few minutes focused on…
