When alleged screenshots from Demi Lovato‘s rumored private Instagram account made their way around the web on April 17, 2020, and they contained a lot of shade towards Selena Gomez, some fans were not happy with the singer. The Finsta posts quickly went viral, with some fans trying to to “cancel” the singer online. They even got “#DemiLovatoIsOverParty” to trend on Twitter. Now, the former Disney actress has responded to the hashtag and the nasty messages, and it turns out, she’s completely unbothered by them.
“I’ve been canceled so many times that I can’t even count,” the 27-year-old explained to Jameela Jamil on her “I Weigh” podcast. “The hashtag, ‘#DemiIsOverParty,’ that whole thing it’s just, like, it doesn’t even affect me anymore. It’s not real, I don’t think that anybody was ever officially canceled, otherwise certain people wouldn’t have Grammys today, certain people wouldn’t have Oscars and certain people wouldn’t be where they are in their positions.”
The “Confident” songstress urged her fans to start using “forgiveness culture” instead. That is, unless a celebrity has messed up multiple times.
“There are some people, if you have used up your second and third chances with a certain topic, you’re canceled and you should stay canceled,” she added. “But if you mess up and you apologize and come forward and say, ‘I’ve learned from this,’ then let that be an example for other people so they can change too.”
“Cancel culture will not work unless people have some sort of mercy. You have to be able to do that,” Demi continued. “I think if it’s somebody who refuses to learn, just has the entitlement of I can never do any wrong and I can get away with this, then yeah … go ahead and cancel them.”
During the interview, the Camp Rock alum also got real about her current relationship with her ex-boyfriends — including Joe Jonas and Wilmer Valderrama — and she explained that she had to remove “toxic” people from her life after they failed to respect her boundaries.
“I had to learn that not setting boundaries put me in the position I was in. Talking about every detail of every part of my life, whether it be a relationship or whether it be my recovery, nothing was sacred to me anymore. I kind of used to have this mentality that if I had negative experience with someone I always needed to mend it or I always needed to make things right,” she said. “I’m not really friends with any of my exes today because I had to realize that that wasn’t healthy either. Trying to maintain close friendships with some of my exes just isn’t realistic.”
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