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3 ways that Demi Lovato is better than the rest of us

Updated March 2, 2018 - 6:22 pm

Demi Lovato makes us feel like something we once accidentally stepped in at the dog park.

This is not her intent, we’re pretty sure.

Her big-voiced pop is largely posited on perseverance and romance nowadays — the former often a prerequisite for the latter — her songbook as mood-enhancing as an open bar.

But Lovato is such a good person that she makes Gandhi look like a kitten puncher by comparison.

Need proof?

Read on as we humbly count down the top three ways that Demi Lovato is a way, way better human being than pretty much all of us.

And that goes double for Grandma.

She flaunts her flaws, swears like a sailor and gets what she wants

Don’t mind Demi, she’s just over here waving red flags and whatnot.

“Don’t know how to commit / But I might want your kid,” Lovato sings on the title-says-it-all “Daddy Issues” from her latest record, “Tell Me You Love Me.” “And after our first kiss / Got your name on my wrist / Yeah, I get a little obsessive / A little aggressive, a little bit too invested.”

You see, Lovato doesn’t just spill her guts, she dumps them all over the place like a kid upending her trick-or-treat bag on the living room floor, anxiety and self-doubt in place of bite-size Snickers and Milky Ways.

Sure, you could call Lovato’s emotional purges a warning sign, but compared with so many other prefab pop stars, Lovato’s candidness is refreshing, and her willingness to acknowledge and publicly address her imperfections humanizes her in a way that’s unique for someone of her status.

That she delivers her confessions in Smurf-butt-blue language only adds to the unvarnished air about her (nearly half the tracks on her latest album are tagged as “explicit” on Spotify).

“I used to hold my freak back / Now I’m letting go,” Lovato explains on “Confident,” which opens her 2015 album of the same name. “I make my own choice / (expletive), I run this show.”

She hit rock bottom — and hit back

Smuggling cocaine on airplanes and botching performances because she was too hungover, Lovato got her Dana Plato on at a young age.

She was in rehab by 18.

But unlike the aforementioned “Diff’rent Strokes” star, who also came to fame as a kid and struggled with the excesses of stardom, eventually overdosing at age 34, Lovato has been able to claw her way out of the rabbit hole of addiction she plunged down.

It hasn’t been easy.

Lovato has acknowledged relapses — she admitted to being high when speaking about her alleged sobriety while filming the 2012 MTV documentary “Demi Lovato: Stay Strong” — while also battling bulimia and bipolar disorder.

That’s the kind of stuff that a star’s handlers usually like to keep private — and for good reason, it’s nobody’s business, really — often employing the catch-all “exhaustion” excuse to camouflage their client’s struggles.

But not in Lovato’s case.

Through it all, she’s remained an open book — even if some of those pages are streaked with tears.

She’s one of pop’s leading philanthropists

We don’t really remember how we spent our 21st birthday because that’s what happens when you do it right.

How did Lovato commemorate the occasion when she turned the legal drinking age in August 2013?

By going to Kenya to work with the charity organization We the Children.

And that’s just the tip of activist iceberg when it comes to Lovato.

She’s worked with anti-bullying organizations after being picked on as a kid, spoken up for gay marriage rights and received the GLAAD Vanguard Award for her efforts, and advocated for the mental health of displaced Iraqi children, to name but a few of the causes she’s supported.

Now, we know all about being kickass humanitarians, as we do a ton of good for others, primarily by bringing mirth, deep, deep musical insights and glass-shard-sharp wit to RJ readers on a weekly basis.

But even we draw the line at forgoing beer for a day to help our fellow man.

That Demi Lovato, such a one-upper.

Preview

Who: Demi Lovato, DJ Khaled

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: MGM Grand Garden Arena, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Tickets: $29.95-$149.95 (877-880-0880)

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.

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