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She’s struggled with an eating disorder, bullying problems, cutting herself, breaking up with Joe Jonas and then going on tour with him, and now she’s completely checked out. This past weekend, she checked in: to rehab.
The latest in a long succession of Disney starlets gone wild, 18-year-old Demi Lovato joins previously fallen Tinker Bells including Vanessa Hudgens, whose nude photos scandalized her fans; train wreck Britney Spears, who has a pregnant-at-16 sister to match; Miley Cyrus, who started gyrating like a stripper before she was even legal; and Lindsay Lohan, whose crazy exploits need no introduction.
Lovato, who was discovered at age 8 when she was cast on “Barney and Friends,” is best known for her roles in the Disney “Camp Rock” movies and the Disney Channel TV show “Sonny With a Chance.” She is also a singer who’d been on an exhaustive 45-day world tour with the Jonas Brothers when she dropped out to get treatment. According to a source who spoke to E! Online, she had a fight with a backup dancer on tour and later “lost it at the airport [in Peru] right in front of everyone. The [Jonases’] dad basically said right there, ‘That’s it. You’re going home.’ ”
Others claim that rumors linking Lovato to pop star Justin Bieber pushed her over the edge. His crazed followers are known to lash out at his alleged love interests on the Web.
But insiders say the high-pressure world of Disney is also to blame.
“Being part of the Disney machine can be a dream and a nightmare,” says Jeffrey Rabhan, longtime artist manager and chair of the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at NYU. “There are so many cross-platform promo opportunities that even new artists can find themselves working as hard as seasoned superstars from the beginning: between the network, touring, theme parks and film, it’s like graduating fifth grade and jumping to an 80-hour-a-week job.”
Rabhan adds: “In Demi’s case, choosing to spend her hormonally charged teenage years in front of the camera is a gamble. Some hit the jackpot, and others go bust. Let’s hope that her team is smart enough to give her the time she needs to regain her mental health.”
A former Disney actor tells The Post that working as a child star for the dream factory can lead to bad behavior from the start.
“Many of the kids lack the social interaction they would get in high school or college, so I think they resent that and try to make up for lost time,” he said. “They’re treated like stars, and nobody tells these kids no.” Another actress revealed that she was so without boundaries during her time on a Disney show in the ’90s that she had a lot of unprotected sex — during her teenage years — because she didn’t know any better and was fending for herself.
But those close to the Lovato camp are upset that she’s being lumped in with other problem starlets, saying that her issues are psychological and longstanding and have nothing to do with Disney, which has released a statement saying: “We support Demi’s decision to put her health first, and we send her our best wishes.”
Another source defends the company that made her, saying: “These are things she’s dealt with her entire life. Disney has been nothing but supportive throughout her time there and particularly now in her time of need.”
The fact that she was able to quit the Jonas tour is revolutionary in its own right, says Alison Arngrim, who skyrocketed to fame at the tender age of 12 as Nellie on “Little House on the Prairie.” Today Arngrim works with Paul Petersen, who runs A Minor Consideration, the child star advocacy group that recently reached out to Disney to ensure Lovato gets proper care.
“It’s like a plague going on here,” says Arngrim, who recently penned “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch” about her life as a child star — at 19, her parents urged her to consider a nose job and a breast enhancement. “Disney deals in volume. So, yes, they seem to be having a ridiculously high score of women imploding emotionally. And you wonder, ‘What are they doing?’ They’re running a factory. It’s high pressure. Look at how fast these Disney shows come out. Someone is discovered, and suddenly they have a lead in a series. Because of the Disney package, you can be 14, 15, go straight into the lead of a series before the show has been aired. They’ve already produced the fragrance, the posters, the doll, the merchandise. They’ve already booked the concert tour.”
For Texas-born Lovato, who comes from a rocky background with divorced parents and an estranged, cancer-stricken father, the Disney pressures may have simply accelerated her downfall.
“Stories have come out about Britney’s family, Lindsay Lohan’s family — I rest my case,” Arngrim says. “What if you’re already growing up in loony land? Like [with] the Lohans, if Lindsay had never made a frame of film, she would still be seeking therapy.”
Lovato’s father, Patrick, himself admitted that his daughter had suffered under the strain of work: “There are a lot of pressures,” he told Radar Online yesterday. “That is one of the things I worried about when she signed with Disney.”
Psychologists — and media insiders — are worried about Lovato’s future.
The one-two punch of both cutting and an eating disorder screams of deep-seated emotional pain, they say.
“It’s suicide on training wheels,” frets clinical psychologist Joy Browne, a radio host on WOR, of the risky combination. “Disney has a reputation of being a very controlling company, and they have a formula that’s been very effective, but the problem they have is dealing with very young people who have very fragile ego structures.”
Says addiction specialist Scott Bienenfeld, “Adolescent girls and young women who work in pressured, high-visibility, media-based professions seem to be at an elevated risk of developing not only eating disorders, but also other psychiatric conditions such as cutting. It is not exactly clear why this is so, but probably has to do with the fact that many areas of the adolescent brain are not fully developed until around age 27.”
Psychiatrist Marianne Gillow notes, “Most young starlets are not subject to the same limit-setting that normal young people go through. If a young artist has little concept of normal boundaries, then there is a strong likelihood that the ability to appreciate and handle reality is disturbed.”
Worringly, Lovato has just deleted her Twitter account, cutting off communication with her fans. Sources close to her are now calling her “Demi Drama,” which can’t help her self image.
“Today’s teen stars, particularly those working in Disney projects like Demi Lovato, market themselves in a media environment driven by sex,” says Martin Grove, columnist for the Hollywood Reporter. “And this leads them to regard themselves as adults.”
When, in reality, they are still little girls, growing up far too fast.
Additional reporting by Alisa Wolfson