20 music documentaries you must watch if you liked A Star is Born

Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated

Demi Lovato has been an open book for most of her career. She has openly talked about her struggles with fame, eating disorders, mental health and substance abuse — especially after being admitted to a treatment center at 18 following an altercation with a dancer while she was on tour with the Jonas Brothers. Fans were shocked to see the perfect Disney star being so frank about such complex issues, but it was only the beginning.

Lovato first stepped into the spotlight in a documentary about her recovery and return to music in 2012 with Demi Lovato: Stay Strong, which aired on MTV. The special showed her reflecting on her road to recovery and explaining to viewers exactly what happened. But in the 2017 YouTube documentary Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated, we discovered she wasn’t being 100 percent honest. She revealed that she wasn’t completely clean at the time of filming the 2012 documentary, and was in fact under the influence of cocaine while being interviewed about her sobriety.

In the 2018 documentary, Lovato was more frank about her troubled past than before, talking about just how much cocaine and alcohol she would use, and just how severe her eating disorder was. The film also followed Lovato on her path to releasing her sixth studio album, Tell Me You Love Me and how she copes with being sober while in the public eye.

So many stars hide what’s really going on, but Lovato knew that speaking out could help fans who were struggling with the same issues, and it was refreshing to see her talk about it so candidly, not to glamourize but as a warning instead.