It’s a complaint that visitors to Strangeways and Holloway probably hear every day, but in prison, life is tough and made tougher by the fact that there are certain hair products that inmates just aren’t allowed. I would guess it’s an issue that Amnesty International are, as we speak, trying to rectify…

And X Factor USA judge Demi Lovato knows how hard these deprivations can be on a person given that she’s told US TV presenter Katie Couric that when she was in rehab, she suffered because of the strict rules and regulations.

Demi, who went into rehab in Chicago in 2010 because she was suffering from bulimia and self harm issues, said, “Treatment was so difficult at first, I remember walking around saying ‘I’m in prison!’

“They needed to have those strict rules in order for me to understand how sick I was. I wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom by myself.

“We had specific phone times. There are tons of things you weren’t allowed to have, you weren’t allowed to have…

“Certain hair products or whatever that you could injure yourself with or possibly drink and you were just stripped of a lot of things.”

She added, “I also had someone watching over me every single time I ate.

“And if I didn’t finish what was on my plate, and often times I would cry because I physically couldn’t stomach it, and if that happened I would have to have little consequences, nothing horrible just not being able to go to the cafeteria to eat.”

During the interview, which airs in the States on Monday, September 24, Demi revealed that her insecurities about her weight date back to when she was just three years old.

She said, “I remember being 3 years old in a diaper and rubbing my hand over my stomach, and I remember thinking in my head ‘I wonder if one day this will ever be flat?’”

She went on to say that bullying at school made things worse for her…

“It played more of a toll on me than if I was physically abused in school.

“I’ve always said I wished that they had just hit me in the face and gotten it over with because what they said to me sticks to me to this day and it [turned] me into the person I am today.”

And finally, when Couric quizzed her about an incident in 2009 in which Demi hit a dancer in the face, Demi said, “I wasn’t really in control of my emotions at the time.

“I was just out of control and there’s no excuse for it but it definitely showed everyone I needed to get help and I think two days later I was checking into rehab.”