Demi Lovato continues growing from her life experiences to learn what truly makes her happy.
The 28-year-old star is featured on the May cover of Glamour, and she explained in the interview released online Thursday, March 11 that her short-lived engagement to Max Ehrich helped her understand how she identifies. The couple started dating in early 2020 and announced their engagement that July, but by September, it had been called off.
"When I started getting older, I started realizing how queer I really am," she shared. "This past year, I was engaged to a man, and when it didn't work, I was like, 'This is a huge sign.' I thought I was going to spend my life with someone. Now that I wasn't going to, I felt this sense of relief that I could live my truth."
Demi, who previously had an on-again, off-again romance with Wilmer Valderrama, went on to explain that she is giving herself time before she publicly adds more labels to further define herself.
"I know who I am and what I am, but I'm just waiting until a specific timeline to come out to the world as what I am," she said. "I'm following my healers' timeline, and I'm using this time to really study and educate myself on my journey and what I'm preparing to do."
This is not the first time she has discussed her fluidity, as the Sonny with a Chance alum shared in the April 2018 issue of InStyle that love can be found "in any gender." Last July, she referred to herself as "queer" in an Instagram tribute to her late Glee co-star Naya Rivera.
In the Glamour interview, Demi discussed that things felt "right" when she had a romantic encounter with a woman.
"I hooked up with a girl and was like, 'I like this a lot more.' It felt better. It felt right," the "Skyscraper" vocalist said. "Some of the guys I was hanging out with—when it would come time to be sexual or intimate, I would have this kind of visceral reaction. Like, 'I just don't want to put my mouth there.' It wasn't even based on the person it was with. I just found myself really appreciating the friendships of those people more than the romance, and I didn't want the romance from anybody of the opposite sex."
Demi, who checked into rehab following an apparent drug overdose in July 2018, also explained that while she's moved on from the substances that caused the overdose, she has decided not to deprive herself when she wants a drink or weed in moderation.
"I called [my recovery case manager] and was like, 'Something's not right. I'm living one side of my life completely legalizing, and this other side following a program that's telling me if I slip up, I'm going to die… I think I want to try this balance thing in the substance side of my life, too,'" she said. "They were like, 'She deserves this opportunity to make that choice for herself.' So I did."