Demi Lovato Discusses Her Pansexuality: ‘I’m So Fluid Now’
March 30 2021, Updated 9:13 a.m. ET
Demi Lovato is ready to talk about her sexuality.
“I'm so fluid now, and a part of the reason why I am so fluid is because I was super closeted off,” she said on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, explaining her religious upbringing was part of the issue.
Lovato, 28, revealed when it comes to relationships she’s attracted to “anything really” and feels like “pansexual” is a term that best fits her.
“I heard someone call the LGBTQIA+ community the alphabet mafia," the “Dancing with the Devil” singer said. “That's it! That's what I'm going with. I'm part of the alphabet mafia and proud."
Pansexuality is defined as a sexual, romantic or emotional attraction to someone without regard to their biological sex, gender or gender identity.
In the March issue of Glamour, Lovato first hinted she was getting ready to talk more about being pansexual.
“I know who I am and what I am, but I'm just waiting until a specific timeline to come out to the world as what I am,” she said. “I'm following my healers' timeline, and I'm using this time to really study and educate myself on my journey and what I'm preparing to do.”
Lovato told Rogan on his podcast that she first realized she might be into women while watching Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s kiss in the 1999 film Cruel Intentions.
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“I was like, ‘Oh, I like that,’” she recalled. “But I felt a lot of shame because growing up in Texas as a Christian, that's very frowned upon. Any attraction I had to a female at a young age, I shut it down before I even let myself process what I was feeling.”
In Glamour, Lovato discussed how getting engaged to 29-year-old Max Ehrich last summer and then calling it off in September helped her come to terms with her sexual identity.
“This past year, I was engaged to a man and when it didn't work, I was like, ‘This is a huge sign,’” she told the magazine. “I thought I was going to spend my life with someone. Now that I wasn't going to, I felt this sense of relief that I could live my truth.”
Then, she continued, “I hooked up with a girl and was like, ‘I like this a lot more.’ It felt better. It felt right. Some of the guys I was hanging out with — when it would come time to be sexual or intimate, I would have this kind of visceral reaction. Like, ’I just don't want to put my mouth there.’”
“It wasn't even based on the person it was with,” she added. “I just found myself really appreciating the friendships of those people more than the romance, and I didn't want the romance from anybody of the opposite sex.”