GettyDemi Lovato has been rushed to hospital following what’s being reported as a heroin overdose, according to law enforcement.
According to TMZ, the singer has been taken to a hospital in Los Angeles, from her home in the Hollywood Hills, earlier today (Tuesday, July 24).
Paramedics are said to have found the singer unconscious at her home, where she was treated with Narcan – an emergency treatment for opioids – before being taken to hospital.
Demi has battled substance abuse on and off since she was a teenager, but had been sober for the past six years.
Last month, Demi released a song called Sober, which revealed she’d relapsed after years of sobriety.
The singer was due to go on tour this week, starting with a show in Atlantic City but, according to TMZ, sources say Demi has been struggling recently.
Demi last performed at the California Mid-State Fair, on Sunday, July 22, alongside Iggy Azalea.
Speaking to ET, Iggy revealed how she knew about Demi’s relapse, and her concerns for her friend:
I had known about it, as a close friend. So I had really wanted for her to be the one to tell people that. And I worried a lot, as her friend, that something was going to leak or somebody would somehow take that and use it negatively against her, or to make her seem like she’s got a secret.
It’s not my business to say to my friend, ‘You need to fess up’. But as a friend, you worry and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, my friend, she has this thing that people can use against her and I really want her to own it.’ And she did!
Speaking about the release of Demi’s surprise song Sober, in which she admits breaking her sobriety, Iggy said:
I didn’t know that she was recording that song, she didn’t tell me that.
I was just really proud of her that she was honest, because it’s really hard to be honest with yourself. So, to be honest with the whole world, [to share] something that you struggled with very publicly, it’s something that is very admirable. I was very proud of her to see her write that song and put it out.
The 25-year-old has been open about her substance abuse, revealing her battle with drugs in a recent documentary called Simply Complicated.
However, in the documentary, Demi admits to not being ‘ready to get sober’, The Sun reports.
She said:
I wasn’t working my program, I wasn’t ready to get sober. I was sneaking [cocaine] on planes, I was sneaking it in bathrooms, sneaking it throughout the night … I went on a bender of like, two months where I was using daily.
In the documentary, Demi Lovato reveals she was using cocaine for the majority of filming her last documentary, (2012’s Stay Strong), and her abuse of drugs started during her time as a star on the Disney channel.
She says:
I felt out of control the first time I did it. My dad was an addict and an alcoholic. Guess I always searched for what he found in drugs and alcohol because it fulfilled him and he chose that over a family.
Demi’s condition is currently unknown.
UPDATE (July 25, 2018)
TMZ report Demi Lovato refused to tell paramedics what drug caused her to overdose, and law enforcement sources say no drugs were seized at her home.
Law enforcement sources also add Lovato was not cooperative when EMTs worked on her at her home Tuesday morning. Those sources believed it was a heroin OD based on what they observed at her home.
However, according to TMZ, a source close to Lovato said it was not heroin, though the source refused to divulge what caused the overdose.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.