The year is 2015. There I was, a junior writer at teen bible DOLLY magazine, sitting backstage at The Voice, waiting to meet our cover star, Demi Lovato.
I’m finally escorted in to Demi’s dressing room for my six-minute interview slot before their performance on the talent show. In my short time with Demi, I had loads to chat to them about, from their latest album at the time, Confident, to what they’ve been up to during their trip Down Under. And since this was one of my first major tasks as an entertainment reporter, I couldn’t blow it by fanning out!
I couldn’t tell them that I have rushed out to buy the physical copy of every single one of their albums. I couldn’t tell them that their music has soundtracked every breakup I’d gone through since high school. I couldn’t tell them how much I idolise and adore them, simply because it would’ve been a waste of our readers’ time to spend the interview gushing, when I had to hammer out as many questions as I could in the short time-frame.
I did, however, manage to cop this photo alongside Demi and the DOLLY mag in which they graced the cover:
Cut to 2021. I’m now senior entertainment editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, Demi’s music has continued to soundtrack my life for the past six years, and I’ve now been granted the opportunity to chat to them about an exciting new project that no one saw coming: Unidentified with Demi Lovato, a docuseries where Demi, joined by their bestie, Matthew, and sister, Dallas, “searches for the truth about the UFO phenomena.”
This time around, I’m chatting to them via Zoom and since they don’t have an impending The Voice performance to prepare for, we’ve got plenty of time to chat! So what do I do? I open the interview by doing what my 23-year-old self was too afraid too do: fan the fuck out.
“I’ve been a HUGE Lovatic since high school, so this is a HUGE honour for me,” I excitedly told them, to which they warmly responded: “Aw!”
“I’ve also been a huge UFO fan for as long as I can remember, so this show sees my two passions collide. How did this come to be?”
“Well, I have been a believer my whole life too,” they replied. “And I just thought, you know, I’m in a position in my career right now where I’m dipping my toes into a lot of different waters. And this was just kind of a natural next step. I wanted to film everything that goes down when I go and search for these UFOs so that my fans can come along for the ride.”
Hollywood has made millions upon millions of dollars from demonising extraterrestrials with films like War of the World and Signs. Growing up, if there was ever a documentary on TV about UFOs, you can bet your bottom dollar that it would’ve been narrated by a guy with a really deep voice and it would’ve featured terrifying graphics and imagery as a way of fear-mongering.
Unidentified is unlike anything we’ve seen before. The four-episode docuseries breaks down those silly and, frankly, inaccurate perceptions and aims to spread positive awareness and bridge the gap between earth and outer space.
Spoiler alert: the singer successfully bridges that gap in the series.
“Something happened in every city that we went to, which was really cool,” they said. “Not necessarily just with UFOs, but there was even paranormal things that happened. For instance, in Vulture City, you’ll have to see what what goes down there in I believe the second episode.”
When I asked them to rattle off some fun UFO facts, they cheekily responded: “Well, because this has still not been confirmed by any government, I wish I could tell you facts, but I don’t have any!”
“I guess they’re still kind of hypotheses,” they added. “I have a belief that you can make contact, just as easy as I did if you were to meditate and expand your consciousness and work towards enlightenment. I believe that is the quickest way to be able to see something or meet something.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUdB0D1DcDl/
So should we be afraid of them? Demi Lovato says no.
“I think that if there were beings that could harm us, we would have been gone a long time ago,” they pointed out. “I also think that if there are civilisations that are of consciousness in other dimensions, which has given them the technology to be able to travel through space, I think that they are looking for nothing but peaceful encounters and interactions because like I said, if they wanted us gone, we would have been gone a long time ago!”
“That’s so true,” I responded. “It’s almost arrogant of us to think that they’re out to get our planet. Look at the state we’re in…”
“Exactly!” Demi replied. “Why would they want our planet when we’re running it into the ground?”
I then asked for any common misconceptions about UFOs that bothers them, and they reinforced the idea that we need to ditch the negative stereotypes.
“I think the ones that bother me are that they’re harmful or that they’ll come and take over the planet,” they said.
“I really think that if there was anything out there that would want to do that to us, it would have happened by now. But I think that we have to stop calling them aliens because aliens is a derogatory term for anything. That’s why I like to call them ETs! So yeah, that’s a little tidbit. A little information that I learned.”
[Editor’s note: As per Demi’s guidance, we have refrained from using the A-word in this article as it’s an offensive term, no matter who you’re directing it at. It’s ETs, folks. File that away, please!]
“I think that the world is becoming a more open place,” Demi added. “Slowly, but surely, I think that we’re making progress. And we’re slowly getting there. But, you know, any progress is progress!”
Overall the message of the show is to give viewers “an understanding of how much we need to take care of our planet and how much we need to learn how to expand our consciousness,” Demi says.
Because, as they pointed out, “What if they’re waiting for us? What if that’s what they’re waiting on?”
So what’s next for Demi? “I am going to be making music. I would love to get back into music! I’d love to also get back into acting and continuing my podcast.” We love to see it.
All four episodes of Unidentified with Demi Lovato are now streaming on Hayu.
Matty Galea is the Senior Entertainment Editor at PEDESTRIAN who also dabbles in woo-woo stuff like astrology and crystals and has been penning horoscopes since the start of his career. He also Tweets about pop culture and astrology and posts spicy content on Instagram.
