Demi Lovato won’t confirm that her new single ’29’ is about her age difference with ex Wilmer Valderrama, but she thinks it speaks for itself.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about releasing this song,” the 29-year-old singer told Zane Lowe in an Apple Music interview Wednesday. “I just said, ‘This is what I have to go for. I have to own my truth.’”
Lovato, who dated Valderrama from 2010 to 2016, noted that “sometimes saying less is more.”
The former Disney Channel star explained, “I’m very careful how I answer these questions because I feel like the song says it all. … I don’t have to say too much, to be honest.”
When Lovato teased “29” earlier this month, many fans speculated that the lyrics were about the “That ’70s Show” alum, who was 29 when he met the then 17-year-old “Camp Rock” star.
“Finally 29 / Funny, just like you were then,” she sings. “I thought it was a teenage dream / Just a fantasy / But was it yours or mine?”
After calling herself “too young to drink wine”, Lovato says: “Only five years of bleeding, student and a teacher / Far from innocent / What the f–k’s permission? / Numbers said you shouldn’t / But that did not stop you.”
When Lowe asked about the telling lyrics, the Grammy nominee said she’d found a new “perspective” after recently celebrating her own 29th birthday.
“Turning 29 was a huge eye-opener for me,” she explained. “And when I went into treatment and got realizations, it led to my transformation, my release of the emotion that had been put into this song.”
Lovato said in her 2017 documentary “Simply Complicated” that she started dating Valderrama after she turned 18.
The former couple remained friendly after their breakup, with the pop rock star admitting her heart would “always” be with the “NCIS” star.
“You don’t share six years with someone and don’t give them a piece of your heart and vice versa,” she told viewers. “I’m pretty sure I won’t meet anyone comparable to him.”
However, when Lovato wished her now 42-year-old ex “nothing but the best” after his engagement to Amanda Pacheco in 2020, she told Harper’s Bazaar that they were no longer “in each other’s lives.”