Disclaimer: Demi Lovato uses both she/her and they/them pronouns. This article refers to Demi using she/her pronouns to maintain consistency.
Demi Lovato’s journey
If you were a Disney kid and grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s, you most likely saw Demi Lovato on your television screen almost daily. It wasn’t that long ago that I remember sitting on my couch watching Princess Protection Program while I was home sick from school in the third grade. Even if you didn’t grow up watching her, you almost certainly are familiar with who she is. Along with Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Hilary Duff, Demi Lovato was considered one of Disney Channel’s sweethearts. Starting out on the hit kids’ show Barney and Friends when she was just 10 years old, to starring in projects such as Camp Rock and Sonny with a Chance, to selling out stadiums worldwide with her incredibly successful music career, it seemed like Demi was living the dream, and she wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
But behind the cameras, Demi was suffering tremendously. As she has gradually revealed throughout the years, starting as a teenager, she endured horrific bullying at the hands of her peers. She would continue to suffer more as she got more acting gigs and rose to stardom. She has opened up about how this life of fame would result in an eating disorder, drug addiction, and even sexual abuse at the hands of a fellow cast member. In 2018, she celebrated six years of sobriety from drugs, but not long after, she suffered from a near-fatal overdose that almost cost her her life. Currently, Demi is completely sober, unpacking the horrors she suffered as a child star and bringing awareness to the realities of child stardom. She’s also doing this with the help of many familiar faces.
“Child Star”
Demi is very familiar with the documentary process, having participated in three herself that centered around her rise to fame and her harrowing struggles with drug addiction. However, this is the first time she’s been able to get behind the camera and take on the reins of being a director. In her directorial debut, she brings in many former child actors to share their stories. These actors include Drew Barrymore, Kenan Thompson, and fellow Camp Rock costar Alyson Stoner. I believe that this documentary was executed very well. As I mentioned before, Demi has already had her story told in previous documentaries that focused solely on her journey with acting and the price that came with her level of fame. In this, we get to see the perspective of the child actor not only from Demi but from her interviewees, some of which have been in the spotlight for decades longer than she has. She really takes the time to sit down and have genuine conversations with them, sharing similar experiences and memories. Or really, lack thereof.
Recently, Lovato went on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night talk show to discuss the documentary and one of the things she shared that surprised her is so incredibly telling. She said that what surprised her was the shared experience among everyone she interviewed; that many of them didn’t remember large portions of their childhoods while they were acting. This is a common symptom of trauma. A lot of the time when something happens that is so traumatic, typically in childhood, our brains will block that event out from our memories. With regards to this, Demi has also shared that during the filming of Camp Rock 2 and Sonny with a Chance, she barely remembers anything from her time on set. This was during the time that she really started to struggle with drugs as well as an eating disorder. This is just one of many examples of how child stardom seriously impacts the fundamental well-being of an individual, and this documentary gives more perspectives that allow the general public to understand just how detrimental fame is to a child.
the new digital era of child stars
With platforms like YouTube and TikTok becoming increasingly more popular than network television within the last decade, we’ve seen a new era of child stars being pushed into the limelight in ways we’ve never seen before. One of these examples includes Ryan from Ryan’s World, who has been on YouTube since the age of 3 doing toy reviews and whose channel now has 38 million subscribers. The level of fame that Ryan has is astronomical and unprecedented, seeing as he now has his own movie coming out and has had his own balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for years now. Ryan is just one example of how Hollywood and society simply refuse to learn their lesson when it comes to what happens when you put a child in front of a camera and reduce them to that persona. As seen in Demi’s documentary, the effects of fame on child actors dating back to the golden age of Hollywood have remained horrific and stagnant. Even with some increased protections for child actors, it still isn’t nearly enough to protect them from all the dangers that come with being famous.
With YouTube, unlike Hollywood, where there are restrictions on how long a child can be on set or laws surrounding where a child actor’s money goes, there are no restrictions regarding kids being filmed and put online for views. Their safety isn’t taken into account, and it becomes incredibly dangerous when the child is in a less controlled environment, such as their home. There is no limit on how often you can film and post your child online, and there is no room for these children to have any kind of autonomy. Demi Lovato’s documentary is so necessary for the times we’re living in, but how many more of these documentaries need to come out before actual change is made? How many more actors need to come forward, exposing what the industry did to them as children, before we put our foot down and take action? Because if we don’t, more children will get hurt and suffer the consequences of child stardom, and we will be entirely responsible. Demi’s message is urgent, and we must work to make the changes now.