Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato was born in Albuquerque and raised in Texas, starting out as a child performer on Barney & Friends before moving into Disney's As the Bell Rings and Sonny with a Chance. Camp Rock and its sequel introduced her to a wider audience, and its soundtrack single "This Is Me," a duet with Joe Jonas, reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and led to a deal with Hollywood Records.

The early albums leaned on pop-rock: Don't Forget in 2008 reached number two on the Billboard 200, and Here We Go Again went to number one in 2009. Unbroken and Demi shifted toward pop and R&B, producing the hits "Skyscraper" and "Heart Attack" and reaching numbers four and three respectively.

Confident, released in 2015, brought a Grammy nomination, and Tell Me You Love Me followed in 2017 with "Sorry Not Sorry" reaching number six. "Cool for the Summer" belonged to this stretch of mainstream, dance-leaning pop, all of it built to showcase a large, belted voice.

Lovato has been unusually public about an eating disorder, substance abuse and self-harm, writing about it in the memoir Staying Strong and revisiting it across the documentaries Stay Strong, Simply Complicated and Dancing with the Devil. That material feeds directly into the songwriting, most explicitly on the album Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over, released in 2021.

More recent work has returned to guitars and a harder rock edge, notably on 2022's Holy Fvck, which included re-recorded rock versions of earlier songs. A ninth album, It's Not That Deep, followed in 2025. Alongside music, Lovato has judged The X Factor, appeared on Glee and Will & Grace, and hosted her own talk show and documentary series.