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Demi Lovato Felt 'Lost In Translation' During Ice Cream Debacle

Home / Stars / Demi Lovato Felt 'Lost In Translation' During Ice Cream Debacle

By Gary Trock on June 19, 2021 at 4:32 PM PDT
Updated on June 19, 2021 at 10:06 PM PDT

Demi Lovato has taken a good hard look at their actions against a California ice cream shop, and now they are telling their side of the story.

It’s been about two months since Lovato went nuts on The Bigg Chill ice cream shop for promoting what the non-binary artist considered to be “diet culture.”

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The Cold Truth

Closeup shots of frozen yogurt
The Big Chill / Instagram

The incident went down in April after they visited the creamery and they were confronted with sugar-free options. Lovato felt triggered, left the shop and called them out on social media.

Lovato, who has suffered for years from an eating disorder, has not been shy when it comes to talking about their struggle with food, body image and their recovery journey.

At the time of the blow-up they posted, “Finding it extremely hard to order FROYO from The Bigg Chill when you have to walk past tons of sugar-free cookies/ other diet foods before you get to the counter. Do better please.”

The ice cream shop responded explaining why they have those options, “We carry items for Diabetics, Celiac disease, Vegan and of course have many indulgent items as well.”

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The feud escalated from there with a back-and-forth between Lovato and The Bigg Chill. Lovato even labeled them “diet culture vultures.”

Many people came to the ice cream shop’s defense, calling Lovato out for trying to ruin a locally owned & operated business during a pandemic.

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Brain Freeze

Demi Lovato taking a selfie in a facemask
Demi Lovato / Instagram

Now, two months later, Lovato is ready to explain how their passion got the best of them, and how things got “lost in translation.”

During their Thursday appearance on the “Audacy Check in” on Facebook Live, they told host Ryan Mitchell, “Every time I’ve made a statement over Instagram or Twitter, I felt like it’s gotten lost in translation a little bit.”

Lovato continued, “It was me talking about something I was very passionate about pertaining to the diet culture, and I realized that because I was so passionate … I let my emotions get the best of me and it didn’t allow me to explain where I was coming from as easily as it would have been on a podcast.”

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They expressed their desire to have conversations where people can see their face, hear their voice and are still able to see that they’re learning.

“I’m by no means an expert on many, many things,” they added. “But, I’m willing to learn about it and I’m willing to continue to have conversations that either educate me or others on how to make the world a better place.”

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Mixed Messages

Lovato then went on to explain how they ended up messaging the ice cream shop in the first place and the point they wanted to make saying, “When I messaged this froyo place, originally I wanted to make a point, and I wanted to call out behaviors or branding things that didn’t sit right with me.”

According to Lovato, the food options labeled “sugar free” or “diet” were not overtly known to be sold for specific health reasons. They said that message wasn’t made clear.

“Because it wasn’t clear, I definitely jumped to conclusions and probably shouldn’t have gone about this the way that I have, but I’m willing to talk to this froyo shop to help get the messaging right,” they offered.

The more you know, the more you grow!

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