Kesha may now be a free and independent artist, but up until just a couple of years ago, she was contractually obligated to work with the same person she was suing on allegations of sexual assault.
And in an emotional interview on Monica Lewinsky’s Reclaiming podcast posted Tuesday (July 8), the singer opened up about what it was like to be forced to finish out her deal with Dr. Luke’s Kemosabe Records, even as she and the producer were embroiled in a bitter legal battle stemming from Kesha’s 2014 claim that he drugged and raped her at a 2005 party. Dr. Luke, who has always vehemently denied the accusations, countersued her for defamation; the two parties finally reached a settlement in June 2023, with the producer continuing to deny the allegations.
“The recordings of my voice did not legally belong to me in the universe in perpetuity,” Kesha explained to Lewinsky. “To then be delivering music to someone that you’re in litigation with … they’re in control of the promotion, of the budgets, all of it, the release, everything. For years. For 10 years. That was the only way I’d get out of the deal [with Kemosabe], was if I delivered the music.”
“In my mind, it just felt like the biggest head-f–k of all time,” the musician continued. “It still perplexes me, because it kind of makes no sense how the legal system could just watch this be happening and be like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ It felt inhumane.”
“And in the middle of it all, it was like, ‘Well, go on stage and smile and sing ‘Tik Tok,’” Kesha added, referencing her 2013 Billboard Hot 100-topping hit. “I was dying. I was truly dying inside.”
Despite her appeals to the court, Kesha would ultimately have to release three more albums under Kemosabe over the course of her legal battle with Dr. Luke: 2017’s Rainbow, 2020’s High Road and 2023’s Gag Order. All the while, she was consumed by the preparations for the pending trial, which she says forced her to relive the trauma of her alleged assault over and over.
“Every day, all day for 10 years,” she said on the podcast. “I couldn’t sleep. I would just sit and think about, like, ‘Make sure you don’t forget this, make sure you don’t forget that when you’re at trial. Write down every traumatizing thing.’ Journals on journals on journals. In the shower, I would just cry and spiral down.”
Kesha’s luck finally turned in 2023, when Gag Order failed to match the chart prowess of her previous albums — something she says turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “Because that didn’t chart well, that then led to the fact that my option didn’t get picked up [by Kemosabe],” the musician said of the LP, which peaked at No. 168 on the Billboard 200, a stark contrast to her past streak of top 10 entries.
That December, Kesha says she received a phone call with the label’s decision to drop her. “‘In three months, you’re going to be free,’” she recalled hearing on the other end of the line. “Every f–king thing changed.”
Kesha is now fresh off the release of her very first independent album, . (Period), which dropped on the Fourth of July. The star has been open about how fulfilling the process of reclaiming her voice has been, telling Billboard in a recent interview, “I really do feel like it’s been a homecoming in a lot of ways — not only legally, to the rights of my voice, but to letting go of that internalized shame, of letting all that go and coming home to my own body, my joy, myself.”
Watch Kesha’s full interview on Reclaiming above.