Demi Lovato Explains Conflicting Emotions Behind Song 'Father'

— -- In between the upbeat empowerment jams on Demi Lovato’s new album, "Confident," she gets personal about her biological dad on the track called “Father.” The singer opens up about the emotional song in a new YouTube video, saying she didn't know how to feel when he died a few years back.

“I was very conflicted when he passed because he was abusive,” the singer says in the clip. "He was mean, but he wanted to be a good person. And he wanted to have his family, and when my mom married my stepdad, he still had this huge heart where he would say, ‘I’m so glad that he’s taking care of you and doing the job that I wish I could do.'"

Patrick Lovato died in 2013. His daughter explained how her conflicting emotions inspired the new song.

Lovato, 23, says, “He knew he wasn’t capable of raising a family, and it was because of his mental illness. To know that it really wasn’t his fault really was saddening to me. I wanted to write about it; I wanted to process it.”