Demi Lovato Explained Why She's Not Friends With Her Exes

While her schism with ex-best friend Selena Gomez is no secret, Demi Lovato gave some insight to her policy with ex-boyfriends during an appearance on Jameela Jamil's podcast, I Weigh. Lovato explained that part of the treatment after her overdose in 2018 involved "setting boundaries" — and she took that as an opportunity to edit her circle of friends and distance herself from people she saw as "toxic."

"I've had to cut a lot of toxic people out of my life over the last year," Lovato said on the podcast. "I kind of used to have this mentality that if I had a negative experience with someone I always needed to mend it or I always needed to make things right."

She added that it was a new way to look at her situation, since she'd been stuck in the same cycles for so long. So, when the opportunity came up for her to reflect and see what the people in her life meant to her, she made the decision to just step back from certain relationships and friendships.

"The fact of the matter is, I'm not really friends with any of my exes today because I had to realize that that wasn't healthy, either," she said. "Trying to maintain close friendships with some of my exes just isn’t realistic. There's actually a reason why people don't do that."

Lovato admits that she'd always done the opposite and having to do a complete 180 didn't just surprise her, it surprised the people around her, since she'd always managed to stay friends with her exes, including Joe Jonas and Wilmer Valderrama.

"For so long people would be like, 'How are you still friends with your exes?' I'd be like, 'I don’t know! I just am.' That was because I was afraid of fully letting go of people," she continued. "Now that I've been able to fully let go of people, that is another thing I had to learn when it comes to cutting toxic people out of your life. If they’re an ex, it’s for a reason."

She admitted to Jamil that the process wasn't easy. In fact, she said that the process of cutting people out and learning to have boundaries was the "steepest learning curve" she'd ever had to endure.

"I had to learn that by not setting boundaries, it put me in the position that I was in," she finished. "Talking about every detail of every part of my life [in the press], whether it be a relationship or whether it be my recovery, nothing was sacred to me anymore."