Demi Lovato Lashes Out at Disney Channel for Eating Disorder Jokes

Demi Lovato | Photo Credits: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Demi Lovato | Photo Credits: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Demi Lovato took to her Twitter account Friday to scold the Disney Channel for including an eating disorder joke in one of its shows.

The former star of Disney's Sonny With a Chance tweeted about the joke made on the network's comedy Shake It Up — one of the female characters says, "I could just eat you up -- well, if I ate" — and blasted Disney for making light of the very medical condition that forced her to exit her series after two seasons. Lovato, 19, underwent treatment last year for an eating disorder and self-injury and has been open about her struggle with bulimia since she completed treatment in January.

The former star of Sonny With a Chance tweeted about the Shake It Up joke — "I could just eat you up, well, if I ate" — and proceeded to blast Disney for making a joke about the very medical condition that forced her to exit her series after two seasons. Lovato, 19, underwent treatment last year for an eating disorder and self-injury and has been open about her struggle with bulimia since she completed treatment in January.

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"I find it really funny how a company can lose one of their actresses from the pressures of an eating disorder and yet still make joke about that very disease," she tweeted Friday. "Dear Disney Channel, EATING DISORDERS ARE NOT SOMETHING TO JOKE ABOUT."

Lovato also took Disney to task for its use of increasingly petite actresses. "Is it just me or are the actresses getting thinner and thinner," she wrote. "I miss the days of Raven, and Lizzie McGuire."

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Less than three hours after Lovato's complaints, Disney Channel's official Twitter account said it would review the episodes. "We hear you and are pulling both episodes as quickly as possible and reevaluating them," Disney Channel's public relations team tweeted late Friday. "It's never our intention to make light of eating disorders!"

In addition to the Shake It Up episode in question, Disney Channel also pulled an episode of Sonny With a Chance's spin-off series, So Random!, after a fan tweeted to Lovato that it also featured an eating disorder joke.



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