Do we like Demi Lovato?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Backed trans people in her own words and put her platform to work for others; marked down for a 2021 Gaia gig and a couple of old scraps.
Demi Lovato was born in Albuquerque in 1992 and raised in Dallas, with a mum who was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and country recording artist. She started on Barney & Friends, became a Disney Channel fixture through Camp Rock, then judged The X Factor USA and built a long pop career. She was reportedly home-schooled because of bullying tied to her acting, so the child-star treadmill is baked into the story.
The scraps are mostly old. In 2010 a backup dancer's attorney alleged Lovato attacked the dancer, and both sides were reported to be negotiating a settlement; Lovato's spokesperson said her lawyers were exploring an amicable resolution. In 2018 she tweeted a story about a prank on her bodyguard that drew a pile-on, deleted it, then apologised with a short “So sorry if anyone was offended.” In 2017 Sleigh Bells sued, alleging her song Stars copied theirs, and the case was settled with the terms undisclosed.
Now the harm check. On trans people she is about as clear as it gets: after Trump's 2025 executive order she told trans and non-binary followers she was with them, in her own words. The blemish is Gaia. In 2021 she posted that she was thrilled to be a Gaia ambassador, and Pedestrian noted the app had been criticised for hosting anti-vax, anti-5G and QAnon content, while also saying she probably doesn't share those views.
That Gaia deal is the asterisk. It was one commercial partnership rather than a pattern, and nothing she said herself pushed those claims in what we found. Still, putting your name and a huge following behind a platform like that is a choice, and fans called her out for it at the time.
Lately it's mostly pop-star noise. In March 2026 she copped criticism over performing her 2013 single Heart Attack at an American Heart Association concert, and told the Elvis Duran Show the organisers asked for it and she had raised concerns first. Her ninth album, It's Not That Deep, came out in late 2025 with a tour to follow, and she told the AP that life is too short to take yourself too seriously. Nothing new and nasty has turned up in the last few months.
The good stuff is real. In 2018 she brought Parkland shooting survivors onstage at her tour kick-off, ran a workshop for them, and let fans donate to the CAST Foundation for student support resources. Add her long run of public support for LGBTQ+ people and you get someone who spends her platform on others more often than not.