March 5 (UPI) -- Demi Lovato says her former management team would control her diet, to the point where she wasn't allowed to have cake on her birthday.
The 27-year-old singer and actress discussed on Thursday's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show how her former team fueled her eating disorder and contributed to her relapse with alcohol and drugs.
Host Ellen DeGeneres shared how she recently learned Lovato's former team would instruct her producers to "hide all of the sugar and put everything away" when Lovato visited the show. Lovato confirmed her team would restrict her access to food.
"I lived a life for the past six years that I felt like wasn't my own," the star said. "I struggled really hard with an eating disorder, yes, and that was my primary problem, and then it turned into other things."
"My life, I just felt, was so -- and I hate to use this word, but I felt like it was controlled by so many people around me," she added. "If I was in my hotel room in night, they would take the phone out of the hotel room so I couldn't call room service. Or, if there was fruit in my room, they would take it out because that's extra sugar."
Lovato said her diet was so controlled that she would have watermelon with fat-free whipped cream instead of a birthday cake for many years. Lovato now has a new management team, and had the "best" 27th birthday, complete with cake, in August.
Lovato said her former team's behavior contributed to her issues, but she took ultimate responsibility for her actions.
"Little things like that, it led me to be really, really unhappy," the singer said. "My bulimia got really bad and I asked for help and I didn't receive the help I needed."
"I felt completely abandoned, so I drank," she said. "That night I went to a party and there was other stuff there. And it was only three months before I ended up in the hospital with an OD. Ultimately, I made the decisions that got me into where I am today."
Lovato was hospitalized for an overdose in July 2018. She wrote an encouraging message to fans who are struggling in February after discussing her eating disorder and relapse on the Pretty Big Deal with Ashley Graham podcast.
Lovato will release the new song "I Love Me" on Friday.
