“CAMP ROCK 3” STAR MALACHI BARTON REVEALS HIS SURPRISING PERSONAL CONNECTION TO DEMI LOVATO
“I have a crazy story about Demi,” he tells EW.
Key Points
- In an interview with EW, Malachi Barton revealed his personal connection to Camp Rock 3 costar Demi Lovato — and it involves his mom, Felicia.
- Felicia Barton penned Lovato’s song “Nightingale.”
- Malachi detailed the “special moment” between his mother and Lovato on set of the DCOM.
Malachi Barton wasn’t the only member of his family eager to meet Demi Lovato on the set of Camp Rock 3.
“It was crazy. It was so wild,” Barton began in an interview for Entertainment Weekly’s recent cover story. “I personally didn’t have any scenes with her, but I remember walking on set and seeing Demi Lovato walk past me. I was like, ‘Demi, Demi, what are you doing here? Demi. Demi, let’s hang out!’”
The Disney Channel star then revealed he had a “crazy story about Demi” and her music, involving his mom, Felicia Barton, a singer-songwriter who appeared on season 8 of American Idol.
“She has a song called ‘Nightingale ‘on one of her records. My mom wrote that song about my dad, pitched it to her, and she rolled with it,” Malachi explained. (“Nightingale” is a track on Lovato’s fourth and self-titled album, released in 2013.)
“My mom was on set with me that day when she was here,” he continued. “She had been moving me in. That song came out years and years and years ago, and my mom has never talked to Demi about it, never done anything. They finally were able to [connect].”
Malachi detailed the special interaction between Lovato and his mother.
“My mom was like, ‘Hey, I wrote that song.’ And she was like, ‘No way. … That song got me through a lot,’” he recalled. “It was this really beautiful moment. Demi’s awesome. She’s literally one of the kindest people ever. She’s just so fun, so talented, and so cool.”
Malachi added, “It’s unreal. That’s a song I grew up listening to. My mom would play it in the studio and I’d be like, ‘That’s a good song, mom.’ Little Malachi!. Then I hear Demi Lovato singing it. I’m like, ‘Oh, Mitchie’s going to sing this song!’ Let’s go.”
Alongside Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas, Lovato reprised her role as Mitchie Torres in Camp Rock 3. Malachi stars in the film as Fletch, one of the new campers who is competing for a spot to open for Connect 3 (the Jonas Brothers’ fictional band in the franchise).
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Lovato’s onscreen involvement was confirmed on Aug. 10 after months of speculation.
“We did spend some time figuring out exactly how she should be in the movie because I mean, as she says in the film, ‘This isn’t about me, it’s about them,’” director Veronica Rodriguez told EW. “And it really is about the torch being passed. So for both the Jonas Brothers/Connect 3 and Mitchie/Demi, we had a lot of lengthy conversations about what’s the right balance of having them physically in the film and the screen time that they take up.”
Joe recalled what it was like to share the screen with Lovato again, referring to the parallels between Malachi and fellow star Liamani Segura’s characters.
“I think we [both] said something to the effect of, like, ‘Well, this is crazy.’ As we were looking at the new cast, we could see Mitchie and Shane 2.0 in front of us,” Joe told EW. “We thought, ‘Whoa, this is pretty wild,’ but we couldn’t have been happier. We found ourselves laughing at moments because you fall right back into it.”
Camp Rock 3 is currently streaming on Disney+.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
2026-09-07T21:06:02Z
