Demi Lovato remembers 'overworked' early years of her career

In a virtual reunion with castmembers of her former Disney Channel original series "Sonny With a Chance", singer-actor Demi Lovato discussed how she felt overworked in her early career and struggled with an eating disorder. In a chat with the show's former stars Tiffany Thornton, Allisyn Ashley Arm, Doug Brochu, Sterling Knight, Audrey Whitby, Matthew Scott Montgomery, Shayne Topp and Damien Haas, Lovato opened up about the tough early years of her career where she felt like leaving it all behind.

Lovato said while working on "Sonny With a Chance", she would always be covered in a blanket in her dressing room despite the temperature inside being set to over 98 degrees, said the Hollywood Reporter.

"I would have people over for meetings on my lunch breaks, because that's how much I worked. People would come in and I'd be covered in a blanket on the couch and people would say, 'Why is it 80 degrees in here?' I would be like, 'Because I'm freezing.' They would be like, 'Oh, my God, what's wrong with you?'"

"I had an eating disorder and I was underweight and freezing," Lovato said, admitting that she wasn't sleeping and felt angry over her work schedule at the time. 

"I was so miserable and angry, too, because I felt like I was being overworked," she said. 

Lovato left "Sonny With a Chance" in 2011 to enter a treatment facility when she was 19 years old. The show continued on the network as a spinoff titled "So Random", with the original show's cast, guest stars and musical acts. The singer said she was happy that the show continued without her.

"I just wasn't in a period of time when I was ready to be on camera again. I could not go back into that environment, and there were other things that factored into it," Lovato said praising former co-star Thornton for being an inspiration to her when she entered treatment. 

"When I went away to treatment for the first time, you were my biggest inspiration coming out of it because you dealt with all of those pressures of being a woman on TV," she told Thornton. 

"I probably was happier in my head with whatever I looked like at the time. But I'm so much happier now with the mentality that you have. I look back and it and I'm like, 'Man, it's a shame that we wasted any energy on what we wore on set.'"

The singer said she now understands people who decide to step away from the spotlight.

"When you start off in the industry as a 7-year-old, 8-year-old, you kind of value your self-worth with your success. I have moments all the time where I'm like, 'Do I want to continue this? Or do I want to pull a Tiffany (Thornton) and move to Texas, have a family and have a farm?'"