Demi Lovato is in the middle of a massive multimedia rollout campaign right now. This week the multi-hyphenate announced that her first album in four years — and first since her 2018 heroin overdose — will be out in just a few weeks. It’s called Dancing With The Devil… The Art Of Starting Over, and because this is 2021, she announced it on the audio chat platform Clubhouse. There, she called the LP an unofficial track-by-track soundtrack to the other big project she’s been promoting, a new docuseries on YouTube also called Dancing With The Devil.

The four-part series will roll out intermittently leading up to the album’s release on April 2, but all the episodes premiered at the virtual SXSW film festival tonight. As USA Today points out, they feature extreme candor from Lovato regarding some dark circumstances. For one thing, she reveals multiple incidents of sexual assault. “I lost my virginity in a rape,” Lovato says in the doc. “We were hooking up but I said, ‘Hey, this is not going any farther, I’m a virgin and I don’t want to lose it this way.’ And that didn’t matter to them, they did it anyways.” She also says she was sexually assaulted in the midst of her overdose.

Regarding her drug use, Lovato says she relapsed at a party in March 2018 after six years of sobriety. At the party, she tried meth for the first time and mixed it with cocaine, molly, oxycontin, marijuana, and alcohol: “I’m surprised I didn’t OD that night.” Two weeks later she began recreationally using heroin and crack cocaine, which soon evolved into physical dependence. On July 23, 2018, after a night of bar-hopping, she and some friends continued partying at her Los Angeles home until the early morning hours. She says she called one of her dealers around 5:30AM and he brought her oxycodone she now believes was laced with fentanyl. She says the dealer was the person who sexually assaulted her: “When they found me, I was naked, I was blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me.”

In the aftermath of the overdose, she suffered three strokes, a heart attack, and organ failure. She was also declared legally blind during her hospital stay. Lovato has since regained eyesight but cannot drive: “Sometimes when I go to pour a glass of water, I totally miss the cup because I can’t see it anymore.” She says she later relapsed again after attending a trauma recovery retreat. Lovato now receives Vivitrol injections to help curb her cravings for alchohol and opioids. As she has expressed in interviews lately, she has resumed smoking weed and drinking, allegedly in moderation. “I have full faith you’re not going to open up TMZ and see another overdose headline,” she says.

Beyond the album and docuseries, Lovato is developing and starring in Hungry, a new NBC sitcom about a food issues support group.

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