Demi Lovato just dropped her new album Dancing With The Devil…The Art Of Starting Over, and she’s giving fans the lowdown on her new music.
The 28-year-old songstress celebrated the release with a virtual premiere party on YouTube’s Released, where she opened up about some of the album’s tracks – including her much-anticipated collab with one of her “really good friends,” Ariana Grande.
Demi and Ari have been friends for years – but haven’t released music together until now. Reflecting on their first-ever collab, “Met Him Last Night,” Demi revealed how it came to be.
“I played her ‘Dancing With the Devil’ and she was really, really excited about that and she came up with this concept,” Demi shared. “When she played it for me, I was like ‘Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely! I would love to do this.'”
“I was so excited to get to work with her and we had so much fun singing together,” she added.
“This song was best representative of a period of my life that… I talk about in my documentary, which is kind of the downfalls of recovery,” she continued. “Which is that sometimes you slip up, which is what this song is about.”
ICYMI, their manager, Scooter Braun, previously revealed how Ari convinced him to sign on Demi following her highly publicized 2018 overdose.
“I saw that she was scared, like, no one’s going to take me on,” Scooter shared in an interview with The New York Times. “I asked Ariana’s opinion and she said, ‘Let me go to coffee with her.’ And by the time she got home, she texted me: ‘You have to take her on, this is my friend. I want to know she’s safe.’”
Demi had parted ways with her old management team and, on May 11, 2019, she announced that she’d signed with Scooter.
Sharing a photo of the two of them on Instagram, Demi captioned it, “GUYS!!!!!!! Dreams came true today for me. I officially have a NEW MANAGER!!! And not just any new manager but the one and only @scooterbraun!!!! Couldn’t be happier, inspired and excited to begin this next chapter with you Scooter!!! Thank you for believing in me and for being apart of this new journey. Let’s DO THIS!!!!!! 🖊📄🎉”
She’s since made a widely-praised return to the spotlight, which included singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl LIV, a moving performance of her song “Anyone” at the 2020 Grammy Awards, the release of her YouTube documentary series Demi Lovato: Dancing With The Devil, and a new album Dancing With The Devil…The Art Of Starting Over.
In the YouTube special, Demi also opened up about a few other tracks on the album, including “ICU,” which she admitted was “really difficult to write and sing.”
“I wrote it for my little sister, Madison. We didn’t know how bad my brain damage would be [after her overdose],” Demi recalled. “When I woke up in the hospital, I couldn’t see her, and that’s what this song is about: not being able to see her but, at the same time, I use the lyrics, ‘I was blind, but now I see, and I see you.’ I’m talking about, no matter what, always being able to see my little sister.”
“I actually played it for her in the car after she graduated high school,” she continued. “I was like, ‘Hey, I have a little present for you.’ We both were just sobbing the whole time because that moment was really emotional for the both of us.”
She also performed “ICU” live to an audience, and gave her sister a sweet shoutout as she concluded her performance: “I love you, Madison!”
