Demi Lovato and Keke Palmer Reflect on Their Inappropriate Age-Gap Relationships as Teens: “I Was Being Exploited”
- Kris Avalon
- Mar 4
- 2 min read
Demi Lovato and Keke Palmer are realizing just how much they have in common as fellow child stars, including some not-too-positive experiences.
via: EW
Demi Lovato and Keke Palmer are discussing the unusual relationships that came with teen stardom.
The two Disney Channel alums reflected on dating adult men while still in their teens in a conversation on Palmer's podcast, Baby, This is Keke Palmer.
"I found myself dating — I'm 15, why is my boyfriend 20?" Palmer asked.
"Why was my boyfriend 30?" Lovato responded. "You know what I'm saying?"
"Girl! Damn!" Palmer said. "That is real. We was trying to find outlets, though. A way to process."
Lovato noted that fellow teenagers couldn't relate to the complexity of adolescent stardom. "Nobody our age could understand," she said. "But then when you look back in hindsight, when I turned 30, I was like, 'That's not okay.'"
Palmer said that she gained a new perspective on the alarming nature of her teen lifestyle once she reached the age of her former adult companions.
"The moment when you realize and you get the age that a lot of people that were around you and doing stuff, it's almost a mental break that can happen," the Nope star opined. "Because you realize: 'You were taking advantage of [me]. Oh, I was being exploited.' That was very difficult for me."
The One of Them Days actress also remembered how she justified the age gaps in her relationships in her youth. "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,'" Palmer said. "And it seemed normal in my mind."
"Especially if you're an older soul, too," Lovato added. "Especially if you're mature for your age."
Palmer then expressed her appreciation for Hilary Duff's 2025 song "Mature," which detailed the Lizzie McGuire star's remorse over dating older men when she was younger.
"It's like, 'Oh, s---, we all had the same damn life,'" Palmer said. "Where people kept telling us, 'You're so mature for your age.'"
Lovato shared that she released a song with a similar subject in 2022. "I also wrote a song about that," she said. "It's called '29,' and when you listen to it, I think you'll be able to relate to it."
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