Demi Lovato may be best known for her music, including hits like "Give Your Heart a Break" and "Confident," but in July 2018, the singer and songwriter was in the news for something else: Lovato suffered a near-fatal overdose in her Hollywood Hills home. And while Lovato is currently in rehab — and has been for two months — her mother, Dianna De La Garza, is speaking out about that fateful day.
In an exclusive interview with NewsMax TV, De La Garza reflected on what it was like to learn of her daughter’s condition.
“It’s still a really difficult thing to talk about,” De La Garza said. “I literally start to shake a little bit when I remember what happened that day."
De La Garza wasn’t the first to find out something was wrong with her daughter. News of Lovato’s overdose first broke on TMZ, after which De La Garza began receiving a slew of texts. "All these texts started coming in… and you know how you can read the first line of a text when it comes through. Well, the first line of all these text was ‘I just heard the news. I’m so sorry. I’m praying for your family. I’m praying for Demi.’"
Confused, De La Garza turned to the internet — specifically TMZ — for answers, but before she could get TMZ to load, Lovato’s assistant, Kelsey, called.
"I answered the phone and Kelsey was rambling… I said ‘Kelsey, just tell me what’s going on,’ and the next words that came out of her mouth were so difficult to hear as a parent… she said ‘Demi overdosed.’ I was in shock. I didn’t know what to say. It was something I never, ever expected to hear as a parent, about any of my kids."
After De La Garza processed the information, she asked Kelsey a difficult question: "Is she OK?" Kelsey told her she was, but she also said "'[S]he’s not talking.’ I knew at that point that we were in trouble."
De La Garza and Lovato’s sisters, Dallas and Madison, immediately rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to be by Lovato’s side. "She just didn’t look good," De La Garza stated. "At all. She was in bad shape. But I said to her, ‘Demi, I’m here. I love you.’ And at that point she said back to me, ‘I love you too.’"
De La Garza believes Lovato pulled through thanks in part to the outpouring of well wishes and support. "I just feel like the reason she’s alive today is because of the millions of prayers that went up that day… I don’t think she would be here if it hadn’t been for those prayers and the good doctors at Cedars-Sinai."
When asked how Demi is currently doing, De La Garza responded, "[S]he’s happy. She’s healthy. She’s working on her sobriety, and she’s getting the help she needs. And that in itself encourages me about her future and about the future of our family," De La Garza said.
More: What People Don’t Understand About Addiction
And we are hopeful too — for Lovato, De La Garza and their entire family.
If you or someone you know has a problem with substance abuse, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Help Line at 1-800-662-4357.
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