Demi Lovato’s Mother Speaks About Her Daughter’s Overdose for the First Time.
Demi Lovato’s mother Dianna de la Garza has opened up about her daughter’s July overdose for the first time, speaking to Newsmax TV about her finding out, seeing Demi for the first time at the hospital, and Demi’s status today. de le Garza’s interview was also meant to raise awareness on the opioids crisis in the U.S. and was done with Demi’s blessing.
TMZ reported news of Demi’s condition before de le Garza found out, she said. “I literally start to shake a little bit when I start to remember what happened that day,” she started. “I was actually looking at my phone and all these texts started coming in. Just text after text after texts. And I thought, ‘What is going on?’”
The texts were from friends who had seen TMZ’s report, de le Garza recalled. “The first lines of these texts were saying, ‘I just heard the news, I’m so sorry, I’m praying for your family, I’m praying for Demi.’ I was in shock. I thought, what is going on? And someone said, ‘I just saw on TMZ. I’m so sorry. Please tell me it’s not true.’ And I mean, my heart just dropped. I didn’t know what I was looking at. And so I thought okay, I have to get on TMZ on Twitter and see what they’re saying. And before I could get on TMZ to see what they were reporting, I got a phone call from Demi’s assistant at the time, Kelsey.”
“And I answered the phone and Kelsey was rambling like she had obviously been through something terrible, and she said, ‘I need to tell you what’s going on. You’re going to see a report come out. Well, it’s already come out.’ And I stopped her and said, ‘Kelsey, just tell me what’s going on.’ And the next words that came out of her mouth are words that are so difficult to hear as a parent. She said Demi overdosed. So I was in shock, I didn’t know what to say. It was just something I never, ever expected to hear as a parent about any of my kids. And I hesitated to ask but I had to ask her, I just remember it felt like the words took forever to come out of my mouth. I said, ‘Is she okay?’ And she stopped for a second and she said, ‘She’s conscious, but she’s not talking.’ And so I knew at that point that we were in trouble.”
de le Garza had her other daughter Dallas drive her to the hospital where Demi was, saying she didn’t think she could drive herself. “[My daughters] Dallas and Madison and I jumped out of the car at the emergency room and ran into the emergency room to be by her side. She just didn’t look good—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.’ So from that point on, I never allowed myself to think things weren’t going to be okay.”
de le Garza said the family didn’t know “for two days if she was going to make it or not.” She credited everyone’s prayers and the team at Cedars-Sinai, the hospital Demi was at.
Today, Demi is seeking treatment and doing well. “I can honestly say today that she’s doing really well. She’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.”
