Almost as soon as it was announced that pop stars Demi Lovato, 19, and Britney Spears, 30, would be sitting on the judges' panel of Fox's other singing competition show The X Factor, rumors swirled that the two did not get along. "It's War!" Star magazine declared on its cover, claiming that a source revealed that Demi "thinks Britney is a twit, and Britney thinks Demi is beneath her." But in the new issue of Self, Lovato, explains a very different relationship with her fellow former child star who, like her, began her career on the Disney Channel and later faced some very public struggles. Who can forget Spears' 2007 meltdown involving the paparazzi and an umbrella, or the 2008 hospitalization that led to her father's conservatorship? Lovato famously had a physical altercation with a dancer on her 2010 tour with the Jonas Brothers that prompted her to enter rehab for bulimia and cutting. "We've gone through a lot of the same things, so we have a connection," Lovato says, adding that Spears is "a sweet girl."