Demi Lovato released her four-part YouTube docuseries, Dancing With The Devil, on March 23rd, with the last episode premiering on April 6th. This documentary is unlike others, in the sense that Demi reveals a lot more to her audience than they expect. Many of the revelations provide a stark contrast to her other YouTube documentary, Simply Complicated, which came out in 2017.
Between both documentaries, Demi actually challenges what she said back in 2017 in this 2021 series, with her loved ones even admitting that she is a skilled liar when she needs to be, and can appear to be perfectly okay when she's, in fact, not. The lyrics of the song, "Dancing With The Devil" directly state, "I told you I was okay, but I was lyin.'" So, what are the differences (and similarities) between the two documentaries, and really, the two different times in her life?
Content Warning: the following article contains discussions of sexual violence, substance use, mental health, and violence.
Similarity: Significance Of Her Father
The 2021 docuseries opens with Demi’s confession that her father, a former addict, directly influenced her, similarly to how she said a similar statement back in 2017.
Demi, her sister, Dallas, and her mom, Dianna, all reveal how Patrick Lovato’s substance abuse scared Demi when she was younger, and overall affected her in her adolescent years. In both documentaries, her father’s death is discussed, but Dancing With The Devil delves deeper into his death, and how it affects Demi.
Difference: Emphasis On Her Little Sister
A noticeable difference between both films is the focus that Demi’s younger sister, Madison, receives in the 2021 series. The first portion of the documentary reveals what happened between Demi and Madison after Demi’s 2018 overdose.
Demi's shocking realization that she was legally blind upon waking up in the hospital caused her failure to recognize her little sister. This experience clearly hurt both women, as Madison at that moment didn't know what to think, and Demi had to deal with her loss of sight.
Similarity: Transparency About Drugs & Eating Disorder
The entire point of both documentaries was to include the focus on Demi's road to recovery. In 2017, Demi opened her film by saying she was a little nervous "because the last time [she] did an interview this long, [she] was on cocaine." The 2021 film also cuts right to the chase and introduces the reality that Demi, her family, and her team had to face when she was found "left for dead". While the more recent documentary has more graphic explanations of what an overdose looks like, the 2017 one still compares to this one due to its conveyance of how the drugs affected Demi.
The huge toll that Demi's eating disorder had on her is also explored in both films, with the 2017 one spending a little more time on how food completely affected her mindset. The two films show how Demi handled things differently. The 2017 one focused on exercise, while the 2021 film focuses less on body image.
Difference: Multiple Relapses Are Explored
A stark contrast between the older documentary and the newer one is that Demi is much more transparent in 2021 with her choice to have a "balance" in personal sobriety. The 2017 documentary showed Demi appearing to be abstaining from drugs and alcohol, meanwhile, she truly wasn't. The 2021 documentary reveals that Lovato has changed her approach when it comes to sobriety.
Demi and her case manager in Dancing With The Devil both defend her choice to smoke marijuana and drink in moderation. The 2021 series even shows old footage from her saying in Simply Complicated that she was sober when she was still dealing with her addiction. This was precisely where her multiple relapses and 2018 overdose derived from. She turned to substance abuse to cope with her depression, even a month after she was in the hospital with three strokes, a heart attack, and blindness.
Similarity: Addressing Friendship Issues
Both YouTube documentaries reveal the negative effects that Demi's choices had on her friends. Simply Complicated mentions Demi's violent moment after her friend, Shorty, told Kevin Jonas Sr. and her family that she was on cocaine, and trashed a hotel room with a group of people. Demi punched Shorty on the plane, which was where her team noticed that Demi was experiencing some problems.
Similarly, in the 2021 documentary, although Demi does not mention any outward brawls she had with her core group of friends, something else impacted her friend and choreographer, Dani. Some of Lovato's fans brutally blamed Dani for throwing a party and accused her of leading Lovato to relapse on hardcore drugs. While this issue is entirely different from what happened between Lovato and her friend from Camp Rock, both documentaries still touch on friendship and loyalty.
Difference: Addresses Friend's Emotional Effects
Here's the big difference from 2017. Dani was given the chance to fully tell her story to the documentary's audience on how the accusatory assault she received online affected her.
Lovato thankfully brought her friend in front of the cameras to share how she couldn't get a job, as the rumored "heroin dealer," and that she was facing threats for over a year regarding Demi's overdose. Lovato wanted Dani to have the chance to set the record straight that she did not cause her to use drugs, as well as give Matthew and Sirah the chance to express how they reacted to her overdose.
Similarity: Discussion Of Relationships
What most loyal "Lovatics" remember was Demi's over six-year relationship with actor, Wilmer Valderrama, which ended before Simply Complicated was released. Lovato is seen mentioning that it had been one year since the two broke up in the 2017 documentary. The film shows the positivity Lovato embraced in her friendship with Valderrama.
In Dancing With The Devil, Demi addresses what happened between her and her ex-fiancee, Max Ehrich. Her true feelings emerge and she mourns something similar to what she once felt after she and Wilmer were done, questioning how she could ever give her heart away again.
Difference: Revelations Of Sexual Assault & Its Impact
This is one seriously disturbing portion of the Dancing With The Devil series. Unlike Simply Complicated, Lovato now opens up about the fact that she was actually "left for dead" after her drug dealer took advantage of her when she was high on the drugs he gave her.
And it only worsens from this reveal. Lovato admits she "lost her virginity in a rape" when she was just 15 years old working on the Disney Channel. The transparency, and overall brutal truth, in this docuseries, has a huge impact on viewers.
Similarity: Demi's Declaration That She's Accomplishing Sobriety
The general comparison between the two is Demi's primary goal to avoid turning to substance abuse to deal with her problems. In both documentaries, Lovato declares that her intention is to get sober and take care of herself in this new way she's found.
Despite the fact that the regiments and plans she's placed on in the films are different, both still emphasize that she wants to accomplish self-care. The way she wants to achieve a healthier mentality is by seeking help from people she trusts, which is a point that she makes in both documentaries.
Difference: Her Honesty About The Meaning Of Sobriety
Demi doesn't hold back in saying that her attempt to be 100% "clean" of all drugs and alcohol back in 2017 wasn't effective for her, personally. She relapses and is honest about how it happened, and she investigates why exactly she would continue using despite all of the negative effects she's experienced from it.
Lovato's 2021 series ends by admitting that she smokes and drinks in moderation because that works for her, but indicates that this is not her way of saying that it works for every recovering addict.