Demi Lovato: I thought I’d be dead by 21

Demi Lovato thought she would be dead by the age of 21.

The 23-year-old singer was admitted to rehab in 2010 for treatment for alcohol and drug abuse along with an eating disorder and self-harming and Demi thinks if she had gone on without seeking help she would not have survived.

She told American Way magazine: "I lived fast and I was going to die young. I didn’t think I would make it to 21."

And she revealed that seeing Britney Spears go through her meltdown in 2007 left Demi convinced the same would happen to her, as a fellow former child star.

She said: "I was definitely like, ‘Oh crap. In three years, that’s going to be me.’"

These days Demi is a role-model for young women but wasn’t comfortable with the responsibility at first.

She said: "I didn’t go into treatment thinking, ‘OK, now I’m going to be an inspiration’. At times I was resentful for having that kind of responsibility, but now, it’s really become a part of my life. It holds me accountable."

Demi’s mother and grandmother both struggled with eating disorders and Demi says it led to her developing her own issues with food.

She said: "Even though I was two or three years old, being around somebody who was 80 pounds and had an active eating disorder … it’s hard not to grow up like that."

And when Demi started competing in beauty pageants at the age of seven, things got worse.

She said: "My body-image awareness started way before that. But I do attribute a little of my insecurities to being onstage and judged for my beauty.’

‘When I was gaining weight because I was becoming a woman, I would look at those images [on her bedroom wall] and say to myself, "Wait, this is not what I look like. I’m getting fat on the hips and on my butt."’