Demi Lovato has admitted that her past age-gap romance with Wilmer Valderrama was “not OK”.
The singer and actress has reflected on her relationship with the That ’70s Show actor, who is 12 years her senior. The pair dated from 2010, when Demi was 18 and Wilmer was 30, until their split in 2016.
Speaking on an episode of Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast, Demi and host Keke Palmer discussed their experiences as former child stars and the relationships they had as teenagers with older men.
“I feel like people don’t understand that that’s what we were dealing with, you know?” Keke questioned. “I found myself dating. I’m 15. Why is my boyfriend 20?”
Demi added, “Why was my boyfriend 30? You know what I’m saying? But then you look back in hindsight. When I turned 30, I was like, that’s not OK.”
Keke went on to explain that once she reached a certain age, she began to reassess those experiences.
“Girl, the moment when you realise, and you get (to) the age of a lot of people that were around you and doing stuff, it’s almost a mental break that can happen because you realise you were taken advantage of. ‘Oh, I was being exploited,'” she told Demi.
The former Nickelodeon star continued, “That was very difficult for me ’cause at 15 I’m thinking my boyfriend’s older because I’m doing an older job, and I’m doing a bunch of things, and this is the way that it is, and it seemed normal in my mind.”
Demi, 33, married songwriter Jordan ‘Jutes’ Lutes in May 2025, while Wilmer shares two children with his fiancée, Amanda Pacheco.
Keke, 32, dated New Boyz rapper Earl ‘Ben J’ Benjamin when she was 16 and he was 19. She shares a three-year-old son named Leo with her ex-boyfriend Darius Jackson.
