Demi Lovato: 'If I could do it over again' I wouldn't have started acting at age 8
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Demi Lovato wishes she hadn’t become a child actress at age 8.
“I wouldn’t start that young if I could do it over again,” Lovato, who made her acting debut on “Barney and Friends,” said at the Cannes Lions festival in France on Monday.
The raven-haired pop singer, who went on to be a Disney star in “Camp Rock,” said, “It was a difficult transition from child star to transform into a mainstream artist.”
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“You have to find your identity,” Lovato said in an interview with Susanne Daniels, YouTube’s head of original programming. “For so long you’ve been molded and then you’re expected to figure out who you are in front of the whole world.”
The “Cool for the Summer” singer told the audience she was making a new series for YouTube called “Simply Complicated,” about reaching a pivotal point in her life.
“I’m turning 25,” she said, drawing laughter from older members of the audience.
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“Hey, it’s a quarter of a life. I’m looking at my future and my past and I want to share it with my fans.”
“I feel like I’ve lived a lot longer than I actually have,” she later added.
Lovato revealed that when she’s not working, she’s doing mixed martial arts training and has a white belt in jiu jitsu. The singer told Daniels she’s releasing a single very soon from her new album and is making a music video.
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“I found my sound,” she said.
Separately, YouTube’s Daniels touted new, ad-supported shows — with a warning to advertisers.
“Five years ago, 85 percent of shows were ad-supported, today it’s two-thirds. Significantly more content is coming to subscription services. The shift is accelerating,” said Daniels. “We see this is a way to buck this trend.”
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YouTube has new shows in the pipeline from Kevin Hart, Ellen DeGeneres and YouTube stars “Rhett and Link,” among others.