Demi Lovato Opens Up About Her 'Abusive' Father: 'I Was Very Conflicted When He Passed'
Demi Lovato is revealing more about her complicated relationship with her father, Patrick Lovato, who died of cancer in 2013.
The 23-year-old pop star admits she didn't have a good relationship with her late dad in a new video interview on her YouTube channel, whom she calls "abusive." Still, Demi wrote a song about Patrick on her new album, Confident, appropriately titled "Father."
"I was very conflicted when he passed, because he was abusive," Demi says in the emotional black and white clip. "He was mean, but he wanted to be a good person. And he wanted to have his family, and when my mom married my stepdad, he still had this huge heart where he said, 'I'm so glad that [he's] taking care of you and doing the job that I wish I could do.'"
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Demi says her father's mental illness made him incapable of raising a family. After his death, she actually created the Lovato Treatment Scholarship Program in his honor, which helps to pay for treatment expenses for individuals struggling with mental health and/or addiction issues.
"To know that it wasn't fully his fault really was saddening to me," Demi says. "I wanted to write about it. I wanted to process it."
The power ballad is clearly emotional, with Demi singing, "You did your best or did you?/Sometimes I think I hate you/I'm sorry, dad, for feelin' this."
"I know you were a troubled man," she also sings. "I know you never got the chance/To be yourself, to be your best/I hope that heaven's given you/A second chance."
The "Cool for the Summer" singer has been open about her own mental health and addiction struggles in the past, entering rehab in 2010.
"There was a time when I was jealous of people who were able to party," Demi admitted to Cosmo magazine in August. "For instance, Miley -- in her music video 'Can't Stop,' her whole thing was partying and not giving a f**k. Part of me was super jealous that I couldn't be like that. I had to look at my life and be like, 'Okay, that's just not what you can do. There's no need to be bitter about it.'"
These days, Demi is more confident than ever with the release of her new album, which debuted last Friday. Earlier this month, she even posed fully nude and makeup-free in emotionally raw photos for Vanity Fair.
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When ET caught up with the former Disney star at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards in late August, Demi stressed that she's more confident than she's ever been before.
"The album is called Confident," she explained, "and I wanted something that was going to best represent the album title, where I'm at today and the music. I've never been more confident in my life and it was the perfect album title."
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