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When singer Demi Lovato broke up with fiance Max Ehrich in 2020, many of her fans felt it was for the best. Since the split, she’s shown a new side to herself, more of which will be revealed in her docuseries Dancing with the Devil. But in a recent interview, she shared how the breakup was also a sign of who she should date next.

Demi Lovato came out years ago

Lovato grew up in the spotlight. She dated men like Nick Jonas and Wilmer Valderrama. But she opened up about her sexual fluidity years into her career. “Just because I’m refuse to label myself for the sake of a headline doesn’t mean I’m not going to stand up for what I believe in,” she tweeted in 2017.

In her documentary Simply Complicated, the singer addressed what many gleaned from her song “Cool for the Summer.” “I am on the dating app [Raya] with both guys and girls; I’m open to human connection, so whether that’s through a male or female, that doesn’t matter to me,” she said.

She and Max Ehrich got engaged in 2020

After Valderrama, Lovato was linked to a few men for months at a time. In March 2020, she began dating Ehrich, an actor. He moved in with her during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. They got engaged in July 2020. Lovato shared photos from her beach proposal on social media.

For months, Lovato’s fans had been suspicious of Ehrich. They shared old social media posts from the actor in which he confessed his love for his fiancee’s ex-friend, Selena Gomez. At first, Lovato deemed them fake. But just days later, outlets reported that she and Ehrich had broken off their engagement.

Lovato is ‘fully exploring’ her ‘really queer’ identity

Lovato did what many do after a breakup — changed her hair and threw herself into her work. She also used the opportunity to examine her “really queer” sexuality. For her March 2021 Glamour cover story, the writer deemed her short locks “a symbolic shedding of the heteronormative box she was confined in for years.”

“When I started getting older, I started realizing how queer I really am,” Lovato said of her identity. “This past year I was engaged to a man, and when it didn’t work, I was like, ‘This is a huge sign.’ I thought I was going to spend my life with someone. Now that I wasn’t going to, I felt this sense of relief that I could live my truth.”

Is Demi Lovato dating a woman in 2021?

Demi Lovato in a leopard-print dress looking staring straight ahead
Demi Lovato attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards on May 20, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. | Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
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While Lovato doesn’t feel the need to label herself just yet (she says she’s “waiting until a specific timeline”), she does know what she wants right now — and it’s not cis men. “I hooked up with a girl and was like, ‘I like this a lot more,’ she said. “It felt better. It felt right.”

Lovato added she had a “visceral reaction” to hooking up with guys. “It wasn’t even based on the person it was with,” she continued. “I just found myself really appreciating the friendships of those people more than the romance, and I didn’t want the romance from anybody of the opposite sex.”