Demi Lovato: "I was suicidal" at age 7

Demi Lovato has been open about her past struggles with bulimia and cutting, but her troubles go back much further than her teen years.

In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, the 20-year-old singer/actress reveals she was struggling even as a child, when she landed her first gig at age 7 on "Barney and Friends."

"At the time, I was so grateful to just be on TV, but I was also really struggling," she said in the magazine's August issue. "Looking back, there was a connection, probably between any kid who's ever sang that [the theme song] to Barney, a little place in a child's heart, a void, that could be filled. And maybe Barney fills it. Even before Barney, I was suicidal. I was 7."

She added, "With Barney, I guess subliminally, I did have a relationship with this figure that was saving my life in a way...I've talked about being bullied and the years of being a teenager, but I went through things when I was younger that I've never talked about that probably caused me to turn out the way I ended up turning out."

"The X Factor" judge talked about her new song "Warrior," which includes the lyrics, "There's a part of me I can't get back/A little girl grew up too fast/All it took was once, I'll never be the same/Now I'm taking back my life today."

"My family knows what it's about," she said. "When I'm ready to open up that subject with the outside world, then I'll be free to talk about it. But right now, it's kind of one of those things where the lyrics speak for me. It's all in the song."

What she will say about her past is this: "I'm not super religious, but I grew up Christian and I believe in God. When I'm in L.A., I don't talk about it that much because people are very judgmental, but I just feel like God gave me a voice, not just to sing with. He put me through those things, which seemed horrible at the time, but they were so worth it. With the obstacles I've overcome, I can help people."

Lovato also denounced stars who do drugs and party -- "If you're spending your entire early 20s chasing the next party, what are you running away from? That's not a badass. What's a badass is when you can sit through your problems and feel emotions when you don't want to have them...Being a badass is handling your [expletive]" -- and said she's looking forward to her 21st birthday.

"I look at birthdays as celebrating another year of life," she said. "You've made it another year. An entire year. Some people don't make it to 21."

The August issue of Cosmopolitan hits newsstands July 9. See another photo from the magazine below: