Demi Lovato is completely embodying the message of her new album. “Confident” isn’t just a track тιтle – it’s becoming a theme in her life. The singer made headlines when she posed completely ɴuᴅᴇ (and unretouched!) for a series of portraits in Vanity Fair, and she recently came forward in an interview with E! News explaining why she chose to bare all, and what she hopes young women can learn from the move. Namely, that there’s no amount of self-hatred that can’t be healed – you can learn to love your body exactly as it is, even if that seems impossible right now.

“For someone who’s had body image issues since they were a child, I went from hating every inch of my body to showing every inch of my body to the entire world and without touching up anything,” she said. “I wouldn’t have done that six months ago, because I didn’t have the confidence that I do today.”

A lot of this confidence she cites as having come from learning to defend her body against the never-ending beauty blowtorch that digitally strips stars of what they really look like. “A lot of times I get frustrated because people will, without my consent, PH๏τoshop my body, and it doesn’t look like my own body [anymore.] Like, no, no, no, my thighs are bigger than that, can you put them back to the way they were? I’ve literally done that before where I’m like, ‘Put my legs back on me. Those aren’t my legs.’”

It’s a powerful message because Demi doesn’t see something like PH๏τoshop as “a fix” she’s grateful to have before pH๏τos get published. She sees it as part of the problem.

It seems reinforcing the fact that you don’t have to like your body now to learn to love it someday is something she truly wants women to understand. In the original interview with Vanity Fair, she said: “I learned after working very hard on my spirituality and my soul and my body, I learned that you can get to a place where you can love the skin you’re in, and I’m excited to share that with the world.” Mission accomplished, Demi.