Demi Lovato announced that she is no longer a plural entity and will be using female pronouns. The singer said on the Spout Podcast on Tuesday that the decision came about because she has “been feeling more feminine” whereas she “felt like, especially last year, my energy was balanced in my masculine and feminine energy.” 

Lovato added, “when I was faced with the choice of walking into a bathroom, and it said ‘women’ and ‘men,’ I didn’t feel like there was a bathroom for me. Because I didn’t feel necessarily like a woman. I didn’t feel like a man. I just felt like a human.”

Lovato described herself as “such a fluid person when it comes to my gender, my sexuality, my music, my creativity.” Perhaps this is why she sought to ease the trauma of a ghost that supposedly claimed to be a victim of the patriarchy, finding a similarity between the specter’s ectoplasmic nature and her own fluidity.

A variety of individuals made note of the arbitrary nature of Lovato’s pronoun switch. One Twitter poster said, “I feel bad for the poor Wikipedia editor who now has to fix all the pronouns on Demi Lovato’s page again.” Journalist Andy Ngo noted that Lovato “has a history of mental illness.” 

Lovato has a long track record of drug use and mental health crises. Since 2010, the singer has been in and out of drug rehabilitation facilities for abusing a variety of substances, including methamphetamine, cocaine, and oxycontin. Lovato nearly died on July 24, 2018, after overdosing on what was likely fentanyl-laced oxycodone, suffering brain damage and multiple organ failure in the process. She has also struggled with bulimia and bipolar disorder.