Demi Lovato says getting engaged to Max Ehrich was an attempt to 'prove to the world' she was OK

• Demi Lovato spoke to Entertainment Weekly about her broken engagement with Max Ehrich.
• Lovato said she felt obligated to "prove to the world that I'm OK."
• "I don't need an object on my finger to make me feel like I've got my s--- together," she said.

Demi Lovato says that her two-month engagement to Max Ehrich was an attempt to show the public that she was OK.

"I really had myself fooled, because it was the safe and expected thing," Lovato said in a new cover story for Entertainment Weekly. "Obviously I cared deeply about the person, but there was something inside of me that was like, 'I have to prove to the world that I'm OK.'

She added: "Now that I'm not engaged or married and I'm OK, I'm like, 'Wow. Isn't that so much more empowering?' It's not this false sense of security."

The 28-year-old singer and actress also said that the size of her engagement ring "made it really real." But once their relationship ended, Lovato realized that a material item doesn't guarantee a sense of security.

"I don't need an object on my finger to make me feel like I've got my s--- together," she said.

"It looks like stability, but it doesn't mean that it is," Lovato added, saying that she instead thrives in "fluidity."

Lovato and Ehrich started dating in March 2020, around the time when the world drastically changed due to the coronavirus pandemic. During their relationship, they lived together and posted frequently about each other on social media.

The couple announced their engagement in July of that year. Lovato said that she felt "unconditionally loved" by the actor and "knew I loved you the moment I met you."

Two months after revealing the news, Lovato and Ehrich ended their engagement and split.

Since then, Lovato has spoken candidly about her sexuality and what went wrong in her relationship.

"When I started getting older, I started realizing how queer I really am," she told Glamour in a cover story. "This past year I was engaged to a man, and when it didn't work, I was like, 'This is a huge sign.'

She added: "I thought I was going to spend my life with someone. Now that I wasn't going to, I felt this sense of relief that I could live my truth."

The "Confident" singer also told the publication that she ignored "red flags" in the relationship and that she's "too queer" to be involved with cisgender men.

In her recently-released documentary titled "Dancing With the Devil," the singer opened up about the "false advertising" surrounding their romance.

The documentary also included videos and interviews with Lovato that were filmed shortly after her breakup with Ehrich.

"I think I rushed into something that I thought was what I was supposed to do," she said. "I realized as time went on that I didn't actually know the person that I was engaged to."

Lovato added: "We were only together four or five months, and honestly, it was false advertising. The hardest part of the breakup was mourning the person that I thought he was."