Demi Lovato has said that her relationship with ex Wilmer Valderrama, who has a 12-year age difference, is “not good.”
The “Confident” singer appeared to shade the “NCIS” actor without mentioning his name on Tuesday’s episode of KeKi Palmer’s podcast, “Baby, This Is KiKi Palmer.”
“I’m sitting here today in this state of mind, grateful for everything I’ve been through,” Lovato, 33, said. “It was really tough. I didn’t have a lot of playing time, but when I did play, I played pretty hard.”
Palmer, 32, added, “I feel like people don’t understand that that’s what we were dealing with, you know? I found myself dating. I’m 15. Why is my boyfriend 20?”
“Why was my boyfriend 30?” Lovato quipped, seemingly referring to Valderrama, now 46. “You know what I’m saying?”
Lovato and Valderrama were 18 and 30 years old, respectively, when they started dating in 2010, but they broke up in 2016.
Palmer told Lovato that as child actors they were “trying to find an outlet and just a way to process” their lives by dating older men.
“Nobody our age could understand,” Lovato said. “But looking back, when I turned 30, I thought, ‘This is no good.'”
“Girl, that’s the moment you realize you’re old enough to have a bunch of people around you doing something,” Palmer continued. “It’s almost like a mental breakdown when you realize you’ve been taken advantage of. ‘Oh, I was being taken advantage of.’
Lovato added, “Especially when you’re an older soul. Especially when you’re mature for your age.”
The “Camp Rock” alum also admitted to Palmer that she wrote her 2022 song “29” about her relationship with an older partner.
“I think if you listen to it, you can relate to it,” Lovato said.
The lyrics to “29” refer to Valderrama’s age when the ex-lovers met and how Lovato is “too young to drink wine.”
“Five bloody years of student and teacher / Far from being innocent / What fucker consent? / The numbers told you no / But that didn’t stop you,” she sings in the song.
In the 2017 documentary Simply Complicated, Lovato recounted a January 2010 meeting with the That ’70s Show alum at her home.
“The first time I saw him, I was getting my hair and makeup done, and when he came in and sat down, I thought, ‘I love this guy,’ and ‘I have to have him,'” she recalled. “But I was only 17, so he was like, ‘Please stay away from me.’
“After I turned 18, we started dating,” Lovato continued. “I think it was love at first sight, and I don’t really believe in it, but I believe that’s what happened.”
Even after their breakup in 2016, the former lovers remained on friendly terms. Valderrama even visited Lovato after she overdosed in 2018.
Valderrama is engaged to Amanda Pacheco and they have two children.
Lovato married musician Jutes, 34, in California last May.
