Demi Lovato, 15, bounces onstage at Six Flags America, Washington, microphone in hand. “How are you guys doing tonight?” she asks her fans, mostly girls a couple of years younger than she. They scream, cheer, wave their arms. This is one of over 50 concerts this summer for the Texas teenager who’s poised to become one more star in the Disney pantheon.
Born Demetria Devonne Lovato in Dallas, Demi has a big voice and a bigger smile, and exudes confidence in a loose black Pat Benatar T-shirt and black jeans. A pianist, guitarist and singer, she stars in Disney’s made-for-TV musical, Camp Rock, which just premiered on Disney Channel. Her first album of self-written songs comes out next year. Demi got her start on Barney & Friends seven years ago. She’s now following a tried-and-true formula for fame, stepping in line behind Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera—all of whom got their start at the Mouse House, all eventually brushed by scandal.
Disney has marketed Camp Rock relentlessly, but Demi’s popularity is also due to the guitar-slinging Jonas Brothers, her co-stars in Camp Rock. She will open for them on their 43-city Burning Up Tour, which begins July 4. Demi’s stepfather-manager Eddie De La Garza, will be with her on the tour. Dianna De La Garza, her mother, is a country music singer. (“I got my voice from her,” Demi says.) She and Demi’s two sisters, Dallas, 20, and Madison, 6, are packing for the family’s move to Los Angeles in the fall.
Dianna worries about her daughter but trusts her. Demi does seem sensible. A Christian, she says a group prayer with her band before performing. She sometimes wears on a chain a plain silver ring, inscribed with the words “True Love Waits”. Demi says: “I went through a hard time at middle school with girls bullying me.” One day, she called her mother and said, “I want home school.” “I’d gone through so much rejection I couldn’t act anymore,” Demi remembers. “But I started missing it, and once I got back into it, things starting rolling.”
