Photo credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Demi Lovato has opened up about the emotional letter she wrote to her late father on the anniversary of his death.

The 28-year-old singer and actress – who recently got engaged to boyfriend Max Ehrich – has previously spoken out about her rocky relationship with her father Patrick Lovato, calling him “abusive” and “mean”.

However, keen to go down a different path and put her mental health first – something which she credits fiancé Max Ehrich for – she wrote him a letter of appreciation, which she claimed helped her let go of the resentment she felt towards him over the years…

“There was the anniversary of my father’s death, which is a couple of days after Father’s Day — a really hard time of year for me. But this year, something happened,” Demi wrote in a personal essay for Vogue.

“I wrote a gratitude letter to him, thanking him for all the things that I got from him.

“It was this beautiful release of all the resentments I had toward him. I realized, for the first time, that I wasn’t going to have daddy issues for the rest of my life.”

Could Demi’s new outlook and newfound peace and happiness have something to do with Max Ehrich’s influence? You’d better believe it!

“Initially, I was resistant, but because my fiancé is so positive all the time, I just started picking up on the things he does,” she added.

“I started meditating and doing yoga. I started journaling, painting, taking pictures and being creative, and learning to appreciate nature, after realizing I’d been taking it for granted all this time.”

In her personal essay for Vogue, the Confident singer went on to talk about how the pandemic has affected her mental health – and how she is no longer ashamed of admitting that she has struggled over the years…

“One positive thing about the pandemic is that it has shone a spotlight on mental health in a way like never before,” she continued.

“For so many years, mental illness was seen as shameful. I certainly felt ashamed; I was made to feel ashamed. This comes from ignorance. People just didn’t understand what it was, people were scared of words such as anxiety and depression.

“The more we’re learning about it now, however, the better we’re able to manage it as a public health crisis. Education and the language we use around mental wellness is crucial.”

Click here to read Demi Lovato’s essay in full.