The media has been our main source for finding out celebrity news and facts for years. What started off as informative blogs, websites, and magazines has dramatically taken a turn and is now its own thriving business of both fame, enjoyment, and luxury as well as secrets, deception, and backstabbing. One celebrity who is no stranger to the whirlwinds the media can bring into her life is Demi Lovato.
Demi started off her career in acting at the age of 10 when she landed a role on the children’s show “Barney & Friends” along side her BFF Selena Gomaz. After varied guest appearances on TV shows, she became a household name on the Disney Channel landing the lead in “Sonny With A Chance” and “Camp Rock” movies. While the starlet had become popular and well liked by fans the media was determined to find every dirty secret she had and make sure it was front page news. Through media her public image would soon begin to change.
In November of 2010, a story broke that Demi had punched a female backup dancer from her tour with The Jonas Brothers which ended up being true. As a result pictures of a bruised girl (Alex Welch) were seen everywhere. This gave Demi a bad image as a bully and as being mentally unstable causing her to lose fans from the incident. This however was only the beginning. Immediately following the reports were articles and pictures attacking her physical image that she was too skinny setting another bad example for her young fans. Her Disney show “Sonny With A Chance” was beginning to question if she was stable to work putting her career in jeopardy. Due to the harsh media coverage, not only was her every move and personal life being exploited for everyone to see but when she hit rock bottom and realized that something needed done in order to save her career.
Demi Lovato is a celebrity that will take a punch lying down. While these were personal struggles she was going through, the media had made them public. After seeing how her image was struggling in the media and as a person she decided to fight back. Demi decided that it would be best for her to enter herself in a rehab center to help her get better. She was entered for eating disorders (both anorexia and bulimia), cutting, and depression in a facility in Illinois. As she stated in Seventeen Magazine “I basically had a nervous breakdown. I was really bad off. My parents and manager pulled me aside and said, 'You need to get some help.' It was an intervention. I wanted freedom from the inner demons. I wanted to start my life over”. Instead of hiding from her mistakes and faults she went public telling young girls that eating disorders are dangerous and unhealthy. Her manager and publicity rep had her interview for magazines such as People, UsWeekly, and Seventeen regarding all of her struggles and she publically apologized to the dancer she punched. Demi and her team put ion hard work to assure that people remembered the real her and hoped that by gaining the fans back she lost she would get her career back too.
Today Demi is healthy and currently working on various projects including being a judge on the popular show “The X Factor”. Through a media view we have seen her image change from a sweet young girl to a crazy person, back to a stable and beyond talented young lady. Without the help of social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, it would have been harder for her to reconstruct her image. Young viewers do not go out and buy tabloids often or go online to read about the celebrity news. By having Demi thank her fans for support and prayers via Twitter/Facebook she was able to connect with a larger fan base. Without these media outlets, her image would have been harder to regain because she has the freedom to write and post when she wants on her blogs and sites, while it takes money and time for magazine articles to be published. I think that a huge part of being a celebrity is being in the media. The more stories you have the more well-known you are. With social media you have more control too with how often or how personal you want to become with world. My access to social media, the internet, and media channels have changed my definition of celebrity. I used to consider a celebrity as a role model that people wished they could be or knew because of how successful they were in their work and how well liked they were. Now I see a celebrity as someone who strives for attention, is a diva, and only cares about themselves. For example I do not see Reese Witherspoon as a celebrity but as a person I respect and that I enjoy seeing on the big screen. Those I would consider a celebrity is Mariah Carey, Lindsay Lohan, or Justin Beiber.
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