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Demi Lovato revealed why she chose to go public with her time in rehab

The singer and actress appeared on the latest episode of 'Las Culturistas,' released Wednesday, Oct. 22

'I didn't have a role model at 13 that was speaking up about eating disorders and I need to be that role model for someone else,' she said

Demi Lovato is opening up about her choice to go public about her time in rehab.

Speaking on the latest episode of Las Culturistas, released Wednesday, Oct. 22, the singer and actress, 33, spoke about why she chooses to be open about her journey.

“I had a decision that had to be made when I had gone to treatment for the first time. I had this very public outburst when I was 18 and which I talk about in some of my documentaries, but God, there's so many,” she said.

Lovato added, “And in that moment, my manager at the time asked me, like, ‘Do you want to be public with what you're going through, or do you want to sweep it under the rug and not talk about it, which you have a right to both.' Yeah. You don't owe anybody anything."

“But I was like, ‘I didn't have a role model at 13 that was speaking up about eating disorders and I need to be that role model for someone else.' It was this responsibility that I was willing to take on because I wish that I could have had that growing up,” the Camp Rock star explained.

Lovato added that while there were older actresses who had spoken about similar issues, there was “nobody that I could relate to at 13.”

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“Especially at the time when the beauty standards were, you know, very dangerous. And so I wanted to be that for other people,” she continued. “And that's kind of the catalyst for why I've been open about all of my struggles as in that moment when I made that decision, it set the tone for the rest of my life of like, you know, I wanna help people."

“And the best way that I know how is sharing my personal experience with them,” Lovato said. 

Back in 2017, the vocalist revealed that she decided to address her alcohol and drug abuse when her family told her they would no longer hold interventions with her.

“The final one, everyone was like, ‘We are no longer going to leave, we are leaving,’ ” she said on The Jonathan Ross Show at the time. “That was the moment when I thought, ‘Okay, I really need to get help and get sober.’ This time I knew … I had hit rock bottom and I just needed to do this for myself.”

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Lovato was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while receiving inpatient treatment for emotional and physical issues in 2010.

“I never found out until I went into treatment that I was bipolar,” she told PEOPLE in 2011.