Demi Lovato Celebrated Her Stretch Marks in the Most Clever Way
Demi Lovato Just Shaved Half Her Head
It's the shortest haircut she's had in years.
Leave it to Demi Lovato to embrace her body's imperfections in the most creative way imaginable. This week, the queen of body positivity took to Instagram to open up about her eating disorder recovery, and shared photos of her stretch marks covered in sparkly gold paint.
"In honor of my gratitude for the place I’m in today, this was a lil shoot I did by myself in quarantine this summer when I wanted to celebrate my stretch marks instead of being ashamed of them,” Demi captioned a carousel of images from her glitter-filled photoshoot earlier this year. "I started wearing actual glitter paint on my stretch marks to celebrate my body and all of it’s features (whether society views them as good OR bad). My stretch marks aren’t going away so might as well throw a lil glitter on em’ amiright? ???"
In the photos, Demi is pictured posing poolside in a black swimsuit, highlighting the stretch marks on her hips and thighs with loads of sparkle. The snapshots were accompanied by her understanding of how far she's come since first battling bulimia as a teenager.
"I used to genuinely believe recovery from an eating disorder wasn’t real," she said. "That everyone was faking or secretly relapsing behind closed doors. 'Surely she throws up here and there, she can’t POSSIBLY accept her cellulite…' those we’re just a few of the things that I used to tell myself growing up. I’m so grateful that I can honestly say for the first time in my life - my dietitian looked at me and said 'This is what eating disorder recovery looks like.'”
Demi closed out her note with a motivating message, encouraging fans not to give up on themselves. "Let this be a reminder to anyone who doesn’t think it’s possible: IT ACTUALLY IS ???????????? YOU CAN DO IT. I BELIEVE IN YOU," she concluded, adding: "This year was though…be gentle on yourself if you slip up and remember to get right back on track because you're WORTH THE MIRACLE OF RECOVERY."
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Over the years, Demi has been very open about her unhealthy relationship with food, and how her struggles with self-acceptance affected her recovery. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in March, the singer spoke about feeling "controlled" by her former team in every aspect of her life, including her eating habits.
“I lived a life for the past six years that I felt like wasn’t my own. Because I struggled really hard with an eating disorder, yes, and that was my primary problem and then it turned into other things, but my life, I just felt was — I hate to use this word, but I felt like it was controlled by so many people around me,” she said, revealing that her sugar intake was being monitored.
“If I was in my hotel room at night, they would take the phone out of the hotel room so I couldn’t call room service, or if there was fruit in my room they took it out because that’s extra sugar," Lovato continued. "We’re not talking about brownies and cookies and candies and stuff like that, it was fruit."
She added that she didn't have a real birthday cake "for many years" — until she turned 27, and her new manager Scooter Braun bought her one. "I just remember crying because I was finally eating cake with a manager that didn’t need anything from me and that loved me for who I am and supported my journey," Demi said. "I think at some point it becomes dangerous to try to control someone’s food when they’re in recovery from an eating disorder."